Degrees of Sleeplessness
by cupofdaydream
Summary: "To share in the night's quiet loneliness, a companion for the vast hours of sleeplessness, is, perhaps, all they've ever wanted." Two teachers at the local high school, Eren and Mikasa, in the midst of work and home-life, find themselves indubitably and inescapably drawn to one another. Modern AU.
1. Chapter 1

**DEGREES OF SLEEPLESSNESS**

**Warnings: Swearing by characters and throughout narration, eventual mature content **

**A/N: What better way to ring in the New Year than by trying something new? I've started up this longer, multi-chapter story in hopes of improving upon my plot and development skills. Thanks for giving it a read! **

**Modern AU**

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**1\. SECOND FIRST IMPRESSIONS—AND THEN A THIRD**

The sleepless hours of last night weigh heavy beneath Mikasa Ackerman's eyes, flowers of purple and blue most unkind bruising the delicate skin. Yawning, she dabs concealer on with the pad of her finger—as if it'll make a difference.

She considers the reflection before her less than satisfactory—the slight slouch of a 4 AM headache in her posture no matter how much she straightens her back, eyes as dead as the frogs her honors biology class will be dissecting in a few months time, blouse wrinkled even though she ironed it just last night. Cautiously, she reaches for her makeup bag, drawing in her liner much thicker in attempt to open up her eyes, and painting her lips with the only tube of lipstick she has, a bright cherry red; in the mirror, she blinks at herself a few times, and forces a smile at the woman in the looking glass with the uneven eyeliner and messy lips. She looks like one of her students. With a cringe and a shudder, she wipes away her additions, returning as best she can to her minimalist self.

After feeding the cat and rushing out the door, grabbing some toast and her water bottle on the way out, she makes sure to cast a dirty look at the door of the new next door neighbor, who'd had the courtesy of blasting their ungodly music late into the early hours of the morning, gifting her with a nagging headache in the silence afterwards. Asshole. Didn't they know it was a school night? When she spots their beat-up gray Passat in a shitty parking job next to her station wagon, she resists the urge to give it a good kick.

**. . . . .**

This Monday was destined to go poorly. Should she have expected anything else? She falls to the ground as she rounds the corner, a rather tall and fast moving figure careening into her, sending her students' lab reports and, somehow, her shoe, scattered across the hall.

"Fuck. Shit—I mean—dammit. Are you all right?"

When Mikasa opens her eyes, she stares face to face with a pair of tattered cognac loafers, and, eyes rising higher and higher, corduroys, a wrinkled button up tucked under an equally wrinkled sweater, and a shock of turquoise eyes when she reaches his face, brown hair disheveled to match. Had they met under different circumstances, had he not knocked her to the ground, and had she not gotten only three hours of sleep that night, she might have found his reckless behavior, his foul mouth, pardonable, found the way his brows knit together in concern endearing, and his overall physique rather attractive. But, as she lays on the floor, papers strewn about, and body so fatigued she could fall asleep right here in the middle of the hallway, all she can regard his wide-eyed expression with is abject chagrin.

He reaches out a hand to help her up, which she makes a show of ignoring, hating him all the more when she's forced to crawl on hands and knees to collect her papers. "Right," he says, getting down beside her, "Here, let me help you with that."

Mikasa refuses to look at him, snatching the papers from his hands up as quickly as she can, wiping off her skirt, and slipping her shoe back on when she's gathered everything, standing. Her temper flares all the more when he stands, too, revealing the vast height difference between them. The boy grins stupidly, hand reaching up to scratch the back of his neck: "Have we got everything?"

She doesn't answer.

"Didn't bite your tongue on the way down, did you?"

"Don't run in the hallways," she deadpans.

"Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. You know how it is: Monday mornings, running late for class—"

"I'll write you up."

"Haha. _Right_," he says with that stupid grin again, reaching to his back pocket and flashing his teacher's lanyard. And the first period bell rings.

She doesn't give him the satisfaction of comparing picture to face. Instead, Mikasa looks him straight in the eyes, voice and expression level and composed. "I'm late," she says. And turning on a heel, she leaves.

**. . . . .**

First period goes by slowly as usual, and she nearly falls asleep during her own lecture, which makes it much more difficult to convince her honors bio kids that the reverse processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration are actually incredibly fascinating and essential systems of plant and animal life, quintessentially embodying the tenants of the first law of thermodynamics. She meets more blank stares and open mouths than expressions of comprehension and note scribbling.

"Basically, photosynthesis converts the energy into employable energy that plants and animals can then access through cellular respiration," Mikasa says after stifling a closed mouthed yawn. She gestures to the hand raised in the back.

"So, like, every time we eat lettuce we're, like, basically eating the sun?"

It's at that moment her mind just goes absolutely blank, words in one ear, and jumbled around in the middle before going straight out the other. She squints at the windows in the back for longer than she should, mind for some reason fixated on why lettuce was the plant of choice. Thank you, new neighbor.

She finally settles on an answer: "Yes."

When the end of the period bell sounds, she rushes out of the room faster than most of her students, striding to the teacher's lounge on the other side of the floor for the coffee she for some reason skipped this morning. Taken black, it carries her through second, and a second cup carries her through third.

Back in the teacher's lounge at the start of fourth, she collapses upon the couch, resolved that it is _completely_ acceptable and appropriate to take a quick nap right here until her sixth period class. Setting her head down on a pillow of notes, Mikasa closes her eyes…

It has to be a second—maybe a minute at most—later when she wakes to a deep and slow, monotone voice heavy with the perpetual disdain that she knows all too well.

"Christ, can someone please wake up Ackerman?"

She scrambles to her feet, adjusting her clothes and standing at attention. "Sorry," she mumbles, glancing sheepishly at Dean Levi.

His glare settles on her for an uncomfortable moment before expanding to the rest of the teachers in the room. "As I was saying," he continues, "Eren Yeager will be joining our faculty in the English Department as Marco Bodt's replacement. That will be all," he gestures to the man standing behind him before leaving. Bright turquoise eyes, an incredibly idiotic grin, cognac loafers, and disheveled everything; it's the same guy who knocked her to the floor that morning. _That guy_.

The others give waves and hellos of acknowledgment, a few of the bolder ones going forward to strike up a conversation. Mikasa slumps back on the couch, closing her eyes again and begging for sleep to take her.

"So—if you don't mind me asking—what happened to this Marco guy? Did he die, or something?"

"Yeah, yeah he did, you insensitive asshole," a voice that she's pretty sure belongs to Jean replies.

"Oh, shit, I am—_wow_. I am so sorry, I would never have said that if—"

The other person laughs. Yup. Definitely Jean. "Relax, new guy, I was just pulling your leg. He got a better offer up over in Sina. He's as good as dead to me though. Leaving me behind and all."

Someone taps her on the shoulder. Mikasa opens an eye.

"You look like you could use one," Armin says, offering up a steaming cup of coffee.

She receives it with a smile and a thank you. Mikasa raises her drink. "Cup number three."

He smiles sympathetically back. "I've gotta run. I'm on library duty."

She thanks him again, and Armin leaves, history textbooks under arm, but not before fist bumping the new guy. Odd.

Because sleep seems intent on evading her, she settles instead on grading papers, taking sips of searing coffee in between sentences, when the new guy takes a seat across from her.

"Sorry again about this morning. I don't think I had the chance to properly introduce myself," he says, offering out his hand, "Eren Yeager."

His eyes, bright and fiery, demand her gaze, and mesmerized, she accepts his hand.

"Mikasa Ackerman," she replies.

They sit in silence, and she wishes that he'd either go away or say something, _anything_, instead of just sitting here and staring. He didn't seem to have any problem running his mouth this morning. She shifts in her seat, tapping her pen and biting her lip; his eyes aren't directly on her, but she can still _feel_ him looking at her, and she wishes she had the courage to return his fixed stare.

"So," she begins, half sighing, "you've already met Armin?"

Eren jumps to life, apparently elated to find that she's forgiven him enough to speak to him. "Old friends, actually. We went to the same high school."

Mikasa nods. "He's a sweetheart," she says, her cup of coffee still hot beneath her fingers.

"Yeah, he's a good guy," he waves away her apology when she gives a prolonged yawn. "Long night last night?"

"Obnoxious, nocturnal new neighbors."

"Ah. I know that story all too well," and he grins that grin of his, and this time it doesn't infuriate her, instead sending a shiver down her spine—not entirely unpleasant—and heat to her cheeks. "If there's anything I've learned from my experiences with terrible neighbors, it's that if they give you hell, you give 'em hell right back."

In retrospect, what he says isn't all that awe-inspiring, hasn't provided her with some momentous revelation—it isn't even remotely clever. Nonetheless, Mikasa finds herself smiling.

**. . . . .**

The neighbors give her hell all week. They steal her parking spot—because apparently there's just something horribly dissatisfying about their own—when they can, and boxing her in when they can't, come home late at night blasting the car radio, slam their door on their way in, and blare music only 'til two in the morning if they decide to hit the sack early. She bangs on the connecting wall Wednesday night as she grades papers, and the music stops for a moment. And then it returns a moment later, notably quite a few decibels louder.

"The noise doesn't bother you?" she asks the old woman who lives on the other side one day as they both climb the stairs.

"Huh?" the woman holds up a finger, signaling for her to wait as she turns on her hearing aids. "Did you say something?" she asks. Oh.

Mikasa smiles, and shakes her head.

"Another rough night?" Eren says as he appears beside her at the coffee machine, hair tousled and slightly out of breath. Running late seemed to be his perpetual state; oftentimes, she spots him flying down the hallways with seconds to spare. Not a morning person, he's told her.

She nods her head: "At least I'll get to sleep in tomorrow."

He hands her a napkin when she spills a bit of creamer on the counter. "I'm gonna grab a drink later on tonight with some of the guys if you'd like to join us," he says rather suddenly.

More than a small part of her wants to say yes. It's only been a few days, a few hours in the break room, a few hurried, short conversations in the hall, but she's gathered a good amount. He's passionate. Passionate about teaching, passionate about the kids he's only just recently met, he exudes passion in speech, speaking with such vigor in every conversation she's overheard, hands always moving to further emphasize what he's saying, he's quick to defend, quick to argue with any point he finds as a challenge to his ideology. Ironically, he lacks eloquence, but he more than compensates in fiery ardor. She's gathered quite a good amount of information in a few short days. And more than a small part of her craves to learn more.

"I shouldn't," she replies, averting her eyes from his. "I think I'm going to try to get a few hours of sleep in before the neighbor gets home."

The smile he gives, though there's no discernible difference from the others, feels rather forced. "I understand," he says.

**. . . . .**

Somewhere between two and four in the morning, the throbbing of her headache coinciding with the beat of the music, the idea hits her. Stroking Shina, the ball of gray fur sleeping on her stomach, Mikasa smiles to herself, that same smile playing on her lips when the music stops she finally drifts off to sleep.

The next morning, she jumps out of bed fifteen minutes before her alarm goes off, brushing her teeth and washing her face while she hums to a familiar tune.

Cat in her arms, the two of them loom over the litter box, paper bag and lighter in her back pocket.

"Let's give 'em hell," Mikasa purrs, scratching Shina's head. Six days is, after all, much too long to go without properly welcoming a new face to the neighborhood.

**. . . . .**

She pounds furiously at the door, relenting only when she hears approaching footsteps from the other side; quickly, she lights the bag and returns to her apartment.

The door creaks open, and there's a series of expletives, followed by the stomping of a foot upon concrete, followed by more expletives, and then with angry pounding on her front door.

"A FIERY BAG OF SHIT," a man's voice roars, "_REAL_ FUCKING MATURE."

Poised, the faintest of smirks resting on her lips, she crosses the room, throwing open the door to receive whoever lies on the other side.

"_Mikasa_?"

Shit.

Hair tousled this way and that, drawstring pants ripped at the knees, and missing one sock, she didn't think it was possible to appear more unkempt than he already usually looked. He stares dumbly at her, mouth gaping. She suddenly regrets not putting on a bra before all this, pulling her sweater over to cover herself. And then, realizing that her mouth is open, too, composes the rest of herself before speaking.

"Good morning, Eren."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: It was actually during the writing of this chapter that I came up with the title. I found it very fitting that the majority of this was written when I couldn't fall asleep at night.**

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**2.** **I THOUGHT I WAS **_**TEACHING**_** HIGH SCHOOL, NOT RELIVING IT**

He's embarrassed more than anything else. Had he known it was her banging on the adjacent wall, he definitely would have been less of an ass, wouldn't have thought his very intentional parking jobs to be quite so hilarious, wouldn't have countered the intrusive hum of her early morning routine with the over the top music late at night. His face still burns red when he thinks about that morning: standing, still groggy, a fool in her doorway, while she stared at him wide-eyed, too, that certain _look_ seeping into her eyes when she finally got over the initial shock. She'd looked sorta pretty standing there. He'd noticed it many times before at school, but damn, she wore the I-just-rolled-out-of-bed look well. Yup. Pretty pretty looking. But mostly pretty angry looking.

They'd stood in silence, and he couldn't bear to meet her gaze—he hadn't felt that guilty and childlike in the longest of times. And when she opened her mouth to speak, the tone of her voice wasn't harsh or fiery, but utterly calm and unwavering: "Park in your own parking spot without being an ass, and don't blast your music past ten," she had said.

Eren had resisted the urge to curse, because he knew his cheeks were burning. The words came out slow. "Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. It won't happen again."

She inclined her chin, somehow looking at him down her nose despite being quite a few inches shorter than him. "I'm sorry about the poop," she said, and then she closed the door.

Slinking back to his apartment, he invested in a good pair of headphones later that day.

At school, he sees her around the usual amount, locking eyes with her in the break room before quickly tearing his sight away, spotting her in the hallways, unsure of whether or not to greet her. He alters his routes from class to class, sometimes in hopes of running into her, sometimes to avoid her at all costs.

And then on Wednesday, during the passing period between sixth and seventh, after his fifth cup of coffee—it had been a rough morning—so maybe it's the caffeine more than anything else, he's hit with an overwhelming surge of courage and confidence. He could dive into battle right now if he had to, or, at the very least, engage in the circumstantial equivalent.

Eren flies down the hallway, dodging the students that congest the floor as he makes his way to the science wing. Up ahead, he spots her: the back of her head, dark, chin length hair bouncing lightly with each step, posture perfect and upright, steps careful and precise. And before he can stop himself, he shouts across the hallway: "Mikasa!"

She stops and turns to face him, expression slightly alarmed, and so do a few other students, who look about frantically for this "Mikasa". Her eyes, dark and shining, turn to his. "Yes, Mr. Yeager?"

And just like that, his mind goes blank. He can't look away from her ebony eyes, heart pounding and cheeks burning, it's like he's back in high school—hell, he _is _in high school

A mess of stuttering ensues, rambling nothingness and mumbled gibberish. "I'll, uh, see you later," he stammers before running off.

Fuck. Nice one, Yeager.

He cringes his way through his seventh period class, shuddering every time the moment enters his mind, giving his regular freshman English class the option to either prepare for tomorrow's discussion or to catch up on reading, because he really can't deal with anything else right now, deciding that grading papers would be the best way to get his mind off the series of unfortunate incidents plaguing his life right now.

The essays are satisfactory—nothing unexpected from a regular English class in the beginning of the year—though there's one girl whose writing reflects that she should _definitely_ have taken the honors course, and another surprising abnormality from Koen.

The paper is riddled with run-ons and fragments, incorrect homonyms, good ideas and points that are just not quite developed enough. Eren looks up from his desk. There's a decent amount of chatter flying about the room, most of his kids working diligently, one or two scribbling away at what looks like bio, the usual four in the back corner snickering at something definitely not English related, and Koen sits in silence, lost in the world outside the window, lined paper on his desk blank save for a few doodles.

"Hey guys," Eren calls out, "make sure to stay productive. Feel free to talk to a peer to toss around ideas for tomorrow's discussion or test your comprehension of the text."

Koen remains lost and thought, and not wanting to single him out in front of the entire class, Eren decides to drop it.

**. . . . .**

He goes the rest of the period not thinking about how he made a fool out of himself in front of her once again, until the end of the period bell sounds, and the memory, triggered somehow by the shrillness of the ring, hits him hard. Eren audibly groans, face contorting as if he tasted something foul-because he basically just did-fingers flying up to grasp the bridge of his nose.

"You all right, Mr. Yeager?" It's Koen. He peers at him, concern knitting his brow together while the other students push and shove their way out of the door.

Eren forces a grin. "I'm fine. It's just one of those days, you know?"

Koen nods his head, and turns to walk away, but not before Eren calls him back.

"Hey, Koen, about your essay—make sure you do some editing in addition to using a word processor."

"Yeah, sorry, I'm bad at this stuff."

"Why don't you stop by the English Department during your lunch tomorrow. We can look it over together," Eren says. He looks him in the eye. "You're a smart kid, Koen," he tells him. And he means it. He really does.

Koen purses his lips, and, with a quick nod of the head, leaves.

**. . . . .**

"Koen Klaus," Eren sits next to Armin during lunch the next day, careful to avoid all eye contact with Mikasa, "he's one of your students, right? Does he have trouble in your class?"

Armin chews his food thoughtfully before speaking: "He really seems to struggle with focusing and work completion. But he's an intelligent kid—creative, too. For the diorama project, his was by far the best I've ever seen. Absolutely beautiful. You'll have to come stop by my room to take a look—"

"Ha," Jean interrupts, leaning over and emphasizing each word with the point of his fork, 'Does he _have_ trouble?' More like, 'does he _give_ me trouble?'—that kid's really something."

Eren flicks his gaze over to Jean; he folds his arms and sets his jaw. "He's a good kid. He's trying."

"See, that's just the problem. He _doesn't_. Yeah, he's a smart kid, I'll give him that, but he doesn't turn in homework, doesn't pay attention in class, hell, I get his quizzes back, and half of it's blank. He's not even making an effort. Of course he's 'struggling.'"

Jean says it so matter-of-factly, nose in the air as he sips from his drink. Eren leans in closer across the table, ignoring Armin's quiet plea to change the subject. An uncomfortable tension grows in his chest and neck. And it's as if he's back in that conference room all those years ago with his third grade teacher and mother, except this time, instead of shame, he's brimming with disgust.

"He just needs some extra guidance. Some help to keep him on track."

"I shouldn't have to put on a horse and pony show to keep my students engaged," Jean says with the wave of his hand, rising to throw away his trash. Eren stands to level with him, shaking the table as he does.

"But we _should_ have the decency to alter our teaching strategies to help out our kids—it's our goddamn responsibility!"

"Look, Yeager, you're new to this whole teaching thing. It's okay. You don't know yet."

Somehow, Eren's finds his pointer finger jabbing itself to Jean's chest, and a certain shadow crosses Jean's face, his figure seeming to stretch taller over Eren's head. "No, _you_ look," Eren hisses. "I _know_ the signs. You're too ignorant to see it, but I can recognize it for what it is—"

"This isn't the place," a voice from the table behind them interjects.

Eren turns. Sandwich half finished, and red pen and papers out, Mikasa sits alone, seemingly engrossed in her work as if she doesn't notice a thing. If he didn't know the sound of her voice, he would've thought someone else had spoken. "What?"

"I said," she lifts her chin up to look at him, voice stern, but face calm, "this isn't the place to argue and talk about an individual student in this manner. It's actually rather inappropriate of you."

He's brought back to the room, becoming acutely aware of the various pairs of eyes on him and Jean, noticing how forks and spoons stay frozen in air, the lack of conversation. Eren dips his chin and drops his gaze, unable to meet her eyes.

"I know you mean well," she continues, "but, Eren, I'd advise you to express your concerns to Ms. Petra Ral, the social worker in Student Services, if you want to be of any help." With that, she returns to her work.

Jean smirks, beginning to walk away. "See ya, Yeager."

"Jean," Mikasa calls out again without looking up. "Don't be an ass."

Someone taps on Eren's shoulder. It's Armin.

"She's right," he mouths, not unkindly.

Face burning once again, Eren takes a seat, and returns to picking at the food in front of him.

**. . . . .**

Eren lies awake in bed, watching the ceiling fan spin round, and round, and round. No music fills his apartment tonight, his headphones rest at the other side of his bed, his father's specter absent. Tonight is plagued by different ghosts.

He remembers second and third grade well—angry tears dotting the pages of a book as he struggled to reason why everything made sense to the other kids, but not him, the frustration of having all of these stories swimming in his head and lacking the means to share them. Eren stretches out, his foot grazing something; he reaches down and grabs a book, the cover bent and torn in places. A smile twitches at the corner of his lips. He remembers hating reading.

And he tries not to think of the words that fell from Jean's mouth, poison, echoes, tries not to think of Koen, can't bear that he can still see his own reflection in the window the boy looked out of, can't bear his own self-centeredness.

He tries not to think of her. He tries not to think of how she's woken his insecurity from its slumber, a dormant monster that lay locked deep within him for years, though he'd thought he conquered it, liberated himself, banished it from his body entirely. This stuttering and stammering, this constant foolishness in her presence, ears burning red and heart racing, relentless—a part of him resents her for it, and the other yearns desperately for her approval.

With a frustrated groan, Eren passes a hand over the wall that separates his apartment from hers, wondering if she knows just how often she's crossed his mind these past weeks, made him cringe at his own vices, his cheeks flushed with juvenile bashfulness. Her voice, always so level and controlled in the way she's regarded him since they discovered the close proximity of their living arrangements, and her face, her eyes, divulging not the slightest hint of emotion—it's only natural that he should want to return to those small smiles, those small little waves of her hand across the hall.

Rolling over, he checks the clock, jumping to his feet when he sees that it's only eleven. He doesn't think much of it, doesn't consider the complexities, or possible outcomes, doesn't even really know what he wants to say, but whatever he's about to do, he _needs_ to do it. He feels it. And that is reason enough.

Barefoot, he knocks vigorously on her door. "I'm sorry," he blurts out as soon as she stands before him.

"For knocking so late at night?"

He takes in her slightly disheveled appearance, the way she leans on the door for support. "Shit. Yeah, I-I'm sorry about that too," Eren says running his fingers through his hair. "But I'm sorry about today at lunch, and all last week with the noise and the parking, and I know you're still mad at me, and that's okay, I just want you to know that I really am sorry," he takes a breath, and silently thanks the darkness for obscuring the redness of his face.

And then she laughs. It's brief. He thinks, for a moment, that he imagined it, but then her hand flies to her mouth as if she's spilled a secret that wasn't meant to be spilled. And he silently curses the darkness for obscuring the pink blossoms that bloom on her cheeks.

"I'm not angry," she says.

"You're not?"

"I mean, I _was_. I was angry Saturday, and a little bit Sunday. But not after that, and not today—just a little annoyed—and not right now," she yawns.

"Then how come—why did you? In school..." He tries to refer to every broken glance, the cold reservation in her greetings.

"That was," she averts her eyes, looking at her feet, "that wasn't your fault."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

The light in the corridor flickers, and an autumn breeze sends the both of them shivering, perhaps reminding them that the night only grows later and later.

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow then," Eren says.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she repeats.

He turns to go, and she begins to close the door, but before it shuts all the way, he calls out one last time, "Mikasa?"

"Yes?"

"Goodnight."

Long after she closes the door, long after Eren returns to bed, long after one in the morning hits, and he still lies awake, the ceiling fan spinning round, and round, and round, he still recalls that the small smile on her lips as she closed the door at last, more than certain, that it was no trick of the light.

* * *

**A/N: My intention wasn't to make Jean into some sort of heartless villain—that wasn't the case at all, and I certainly do not think of his character in that manner in the slightest. Rather, I wanted to portray one of the many challenges that children with learning disabilities or conditions that interfere with their education face. From my own experience, sometimes otherwise wonderful educators can misinterpret an individual's circumstances. **

**I've posted a few links to some resources on my profile. **


	3. Chapter 3

**3\. THERE WAS NO 'MAKING FRIENDS 101' IN COLLEGE **

**A/N: The track season has started up for me, which means much less time to write. Thanks for being patient. **

**Also, to those of you who keep up with **_**With You, I am Home**_**, as I'm expending most of my creative energy on this project, any updates will most likely be from requests, so if you have any, feel free to drop me a PM!**

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**3\. THERE WAS NO 'MAKING FRIENDS 101' IN COLLEGE**

She can never decide if the drive to the cemetery is too long or too short. It's never long enough for her to fully gather her thoughts, always long enough for her to begin to start hating the flowers that she was sure she liked when she bought them, never short enough for her wandering mind, always venturing into the dark crevices and abandoned corridors better left unvisited, unexplored. Tucked away beneath her parents bed, waiting for them to wonder where she was and come and find her, and then a rattling crack. Like a firework but worse. Short and puncturing, left a ringing in the air. And then screaming downstairs, a sound she'd never heard before but still recognized as belonging to her mother. Different, unfamiliar voices, deep and frantic. That loud sound again, once, and then a second time, and then twice more. And then silence.

Her grip tightens and loosens on the steering wheel. Mikasa forces herself to inhale for one second, two seconds, three, four, and exhale for one second, two seconds, three, four, five. Gradually, gradually, she returns herself to the present, locking the past back up as soon as she pulls through the cemetery gates.

Autumn makes its presence known in the bite on the wind, nipping at her ears and neck, and the sunsets in the trees, radiant fires that burn to fall. At the site, she clears away the weeds and leaves that have gathered over the past month, before she puts the flowers between the two markers, and lights a stick of incense just like how her mother used to at the small alter they kept at home, and though she's never really been one for prayer, she bows her head and puts her palms together in solidarity.

Sometimes, during visits like these, she has specific thoughts she purposefully recalls-her mother singing in the garden, her father teacher her to tie her shoes, the three of them walking hand in hand down the sidewalk, her parents swinging her by the arms-in those visits she comes to remember, comes in hopes of closing the distance she feels between herself and the man and woman who were her parents over ten years ago. Because sometimes it feels like she stands at the graves of two complete and utter strangers. Today is one of those days.

They wouldn't recognize her if they saw her today. The woman she is now bears no resemblance to their ten-year-old daughter. She's not their chattering little girl, not her father's ray of sunshine, not her mother's moonbeam child: not inquisitive, not warmhearted, not dauntless like she once was. She misplaced all tenderness beneath her parent's bed that summer's day—lost it all in one gunshot and then four more. She is too cold, and too rigid, too withdrawn and rough to the touch. She is something she herself isn't quite sure how to love.

The drive back home is never short enough. She turns up the radio, grabs something to eat, and drives a little faster than she should if she can. Her fingers curl tight around the steering wheel, then they slacken, and then they clench. She breathes in, breathes out, and counts the seconds, tells herself that she's not hurting, and pretends it's not a lie.

**. . . . .**

Coming home is supposed to solve everything. Coming home, where she's miles away from her mother and father's headstones, miles away from her past—its only presence in the single photograph of the three of them at her bedside, the rest of their pictures stored away beneath her bed—she should feel at ease. But her visit earlier today still clings to her, settles in the corners of her mind and festers.

She's lonely. She's ashamed of how long it took for her to give this emptiness a name. For it was only after she finished grading and lesson plans that she realized that now she not only has nothing to do, but no one to do anything with, no one she could even realistically call up and talk to.

Mikasa frowns to herself. How is it that after two years of teaching at this school, she's managed to remain without a single friend? Yet, upon further introspection, two years isn't the longest she's ever gone.

She'd kept to herself in high school and college, the pattern continuing at work, the single single work relationship she has remotely close to a friendship with Armin Arlert severely underdeveloped thanks to her self-perpetuated isolation. She's never even had a conversation with him that didn't involve school.

She has her fair share of acquaintances—the handful of facebook friends from high school and college, other teachers she occasionally chats with in the break room or at lunch—but, surely, she can't be blamed for wanting more? A sense of emotional intimacy and comfort, a companionable presence—the simple security of solitude no longer suffices. She longs for more.

And yet, what use is longing after stars you have no means of reaching? She's never ventured into this realm before, lacking all expectation, all standard, twenty-five and only growing older, every rejected opportunity, every wasted chance—all the signs indicate that her time to learn has come and past.

There's a mewl at her feet, and Mikasa scoops Shiga into her arms, holding her tight to her chest, and scratching behind her ears affectionately. Then again, she's made it this far. This moment of weakness, this confusion of loneliness for being alone—both inconsequential to the span of twenty-five years she's already spent. She may have never learned camaraderie, but she's mastered the art of independence and solitude—she had to. She can and will endure.

Then, of course, comes a knock on the door, and though deceptively polite, threatens her newly affirmed vow of independence. She has half a mind to ignore the intrusion, but then the knock comes again, rhythm and intensity just as civil as the first.

And so, with a sigh, Mikasa rises to her feet, and throws open the door.

"Hey, neighbor," Eren stands before her, "d'you have an egg?"

"An _egg_?"

"For breakfast."

"It's three in the afternoon."

"I just got out of bed," he says, a twinge of guilt in his voice.

She ends up giving him an egg—and another for good luck—hand crossing the threshold between her apartment and the outdoors.

"You sure you don't want to join me?" Eren asks, "I make a mean omelet."

Mikasa shakes her head. "I just had a late lunch," she lies.

"That's all right. And thanks," he says, flashing flashing both eggs in his hand as he returns to his apartment, "I owe you two."

Mikasa shuts the door behind him, and she tries her best to dislike him, to scorn his attempt to break her resolve, but she cannot help but feel that perhaps _she's_ the one who's done something wrong. And with a knock on the door, and two eggs from her fridge, her certainty in her content unravels once again.

**. . . . .**

At school, constantly surrounded by a mass of students, constantly answering questions and lecturing, it's always much easier to forget that there's something missing. She has the utmost fondness for her kids—her regular and honors biology kids, her AP students—all of her classes carry a distinct personality to them: first period corpse-like in their responsiveness, trying so hard to keep their eyes open and their heads off their desks, second slightly more awake, quiet, diligent workers, and third period her most enthusiastic class—though not her highest scoring. The period after lunch is rowdy, but picks up on the material quickly, while the last period of the day is always unfocused, yet high achieving.

"But I don't get it," one of her students says during her third class of the day; she's giving a lecture on the material they read over the weekend on evolution, "what's the difference between two symbiotic species, and two species that just inhabit the same general area?"

"Well in general," Mikasa explains, "symbiotic relationships involve some level of coevolution in the species' features or behaviors. They're not just neighbors, but partners."

For some reason, she frowns at her own words—they leave an odd taste in her mouth. And the odd taste persists all the way until lunch, and she immediately dives into her food to wash it out, taking no heed to her surroundings.

And so when he takes the seat in front of her at lunch, she's ill prepared to hide her surprise. Mikasa stares relentlessly at the rice on her plate, frozen as she wracks her mind for an explanation for this forwardness and change of routine. Sneaking a glance, she's bewildered to find him unpacking his lunch as if nothing is out of the ordinary. Her eyes dart from side to side, scanning to rest of the lunch room for abnormalities in setting. She must've sat down at the wrong table. What other explanation could there possibly be?

"Hey," Eren grins at her, "thanks again for those eggs yesterday."

Mikasa only looks down at her hands. "What are you doing here?" she asks.

Realization enters his face in the sinking of his chin to his chest, and the smile fading from his lips. "Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. Here I'll just—" he trails off, standing, and gather up his lunch.

"Wait!" she exclaims just a little too loud; her palms begin to sweat at the sight of quite a few heads turning towards them. "I didn't mean it like that," she lowers her voice. "I just was curious."

"So you don't mind if I sit here?"

She shakes her head. "I don't."

Eren places his things back on the table, and slowly sits back down, eyes trained on her just in case she decides she objects. "I always see you sitting alone," he says, "and I thought I'd join you."

An obstinate grain of rice sticks to the side of her bowl, refusing to be picked up by her spoon. The staff lunch room, though not unusual in the slightest, feels softer, their conversation, their silence, more exposed. Vulnerable. That single grain of rice finally relents to the efforts of her spoon. She speaks, so soft, even she can barely hear herself: "Thank you," she says.

Eren smiles back at her. And Mikasa finds that she is strangely comforted to have this ridiculous, lopsided grin sitting in the seat across from her.

**. . . . .**

Eren joins her for lunch everyday this week, and Armin joins too on the days he's not meeting with a student. They're not like the other tables. They're nothing like Ymir, and Christa, and Connie, and Sasha's table—loquacious and raucous—their laughter and conversations overflowing from their terrible and spilling to the rest of the room, at ease and relaxed. At their table, the three of them spend their time in forced discussion and silences that don't quite sit right, sometimes conversations carried by only Armin and Eren, while Mikasa listens intently, but rarely contributes. Rather than a break from the rest of the day, lunch becomes yet another struggling class in which both Eren and Mikasa are both teacher and student. In time they will discover the best ways to express attentiveness to the other, and condition one another to bare the weight of silence, and understand the beauty and tranquility in letting it simply be. They will learn. But for now, they stumble through silence, anticipate and dread these lunchtime meetings.

"Why don't you invite them to sit with us?" Eren says one day, catching her glancing over at Sasha and Connie's table.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"I could do it, if you want.

"No!" she exclaims before she can check herself, "please, please don't do that."

He regards her quietly, studying her face for some betrayal of thought. "All right," he says, and he never brings it up again.

But nevertheless, he meddles. At least, Mikasa thinks he does. What else could it possibly be? Things like this don't happen to her, of all people, of their own accord.

"Have a nice weekend, Mikasa!" Krista calls out to her out of nowhere as Mikasa makes her way out to her car.

Mikasa nearly trips on her own two feet, and she feels her own eyes go wide. Krista, kind enough to exercise patience in her caught off guard moment, smiles kindly at her, her blue ethereal eyes disappearing into crescents as she smiles kindly, angelic swatches of her blond hair brushing against her cheeks. "You too," Mikasa finally manages.

In the safety of her car, Mikasa waits for her hands to stop shaking and for the red to fade from her face before driving home.

**. . . . .**

"I thought I asked you not to say anything," Mikasa says, letting herself in as soon as Eren opens the door.

"What? What are you talking about?"

One hand to her temple, she presses the fingertips of the other to her lips, replaying that split second scene that occurred earlier in the parking lot with Krista over, and over, and over. She analyzes every detail for a hidden message in the flip of her hair, or the tilt of her head, perhaps in the way she inflected each word. Had it been a veiled invitation? No, certainly not. Of all things, that was perhaps the last intention. A random, spontaneous greetings? Or perhaps she'd been mocking her and her very apparent lack of plans for this weekend?

When her mind settles from its reeling, Mikasa will register the eccentricity of her surroundings: the dozens upon dozens of stacks of books right up against the wall, the varied rugs that cover the floor,and archipelago of mats and carpets that span the entire apartment. But until then, she remains occupied by her mind's over analysis of a two sentence exchange.

"What's going on?" Eren asks. He stands across the room from her, eyes wide as he regards her with surprise and slight alarm.

"You talked to Krista about lunch when I asked you not to," Mikasa says, and instantly she shrinks into herself. The thought sounds so much more silly out loud.

"Ah," Eren replies, "I did talk to her, but I only mentioned you in passing. I didn't say anything to her about lunch."

"Oh," Mikasa says. She wraps her arms around herself, fixing her gaze on the picture hanging from the wall: a view overlooking the ocean shore meeting the sand, waves crashing against the rocks.

"She asked how I was adjusting to the new job and all—if I was settling in all right," Eren explains, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "I told her that I was doing all right: that Armin was an old friend of mine, that I'd been talking to you."

Mikasa nods. Inclining her chin, she hopes he can't read the embarrassment that's stitched itself to her limbs. "I'm sorry for barging in on you," she says as she contemplates the best way to make her exit.

"No worries," he says. "I actually just finished brewing a pot of tea if you'd like to stay for a cup."

The words "no thank you" already begin to form on her lips—an automatic response, a pre programmed setting. There is safety in patterns, in known outcomes and predictability, an easiness in it all. But there's that voice in the back of her mind, the one that aches, and longs, always wanting more. It coaxes, gently, gently, dares her to take a chance for the very first time in a very long time. And without ever understanding how or why, Mikasa finds herself nodding her head.

Eren beams. "Great," he says, and with a wave of his hand, motions for her to follow him into the kitchen.

The living room was a fitting prelude to the kitchen and dining room. Books and loose papers occupy counter space and chair seats, a stack of records tower precariously next to a record player, and essays serve as coasters for old mugs.

They sit across from one another, steaming cups of tea in both their hands, just like at lunch, but also not like lunch at all. Save for the radio playing in the next room over, there's no cushioning hum of other conversations and voices ever present in the staff lunchroom, no passing period bell to spare them from their own awkwardness. Here, in this foreign intimacy, they must face one another in all their silence, in each expression, unobstructed, uninterrupted.

They start as they normally do: exchanging stories about their day, about humorous things their students said or did, reminiscing over their own high school readings of _Lord of the Flies_, the book his honors freshmen class just completed, deviating on a tangent about how he made the switch from coffee to tea only a few months ago.

"I'm not trying to force you into anything," Eren says following a lull in the conversation and an intermittent sip from his tea, "but if you ever wanted to start talking to Krista, I'm sure you could. She's really nice."

"I know. But," Mikasa hesitates, "I'm not good at that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?"

She stares at the surface of her tea, the flecks of ground leaves settled at the bottom. "Making friends."

The silence that succeeds hangs heavy in the air, a soft melody from the radio in the next room over underlies it all, lyrics indistinct. Regret begins to settle in, a nagging "I told you so" eating away at her diminishing confidence. This is what comes from far-fetched chances. And then he speaks: "Well," his words come slow and cautious, as if each one is its own individual secret, "you've got me."

Mikasa can't help it—her eyes snap up, taken aback by his forwardness, and immediately, he shrinks into the back of his chair, face flushing bright red, chin dipping down. Tripping over his own words, he stutters and stammers, furiously stirring at his tea with his spoon. "I mean, only if you feel the same way. Friendship's sort of a two way thing. I didn't mean to imply...you're not obligated to..."

Reaching across the table, Mikasa hesitates before placing her hand on Eren's to still his trembling fingertips. She can't help but wonder if he can feel her heart beating in her touch. "You've got me, too," she says.

They share a small smile, and for the first time, the silence that follows doesn't suffocate, doesn't stifle, doesn't fill either of them with crippling insecurity at their own deficiency, but sits content: at peace and warm.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I was so surprised to get so many requests for **_**With You, I Am Home**_**. I'll be closing requests until further notice. Thanks for all the creative ideas.**

**And thanks for being so patient with waiting for these chapters. Track takes away a lot of my precious writing time, and I write about the same way I run a 32k—very slowly, very sweaty, usually incredibly dizzy and lightheaded by the end of it all. **

**This is what I consider to be the end of the first act—there's plenty of conflict to come.**

* * *

**4\. A STUDY IN ANATOMY: LUNCH CONVERSATIONS AND POST-DRINKS**

They carpool now—he takes the Wednesdays and Thursdays, she takes Mondays and Tuesdays, and the Fridays they split—at his suggestion. He still struggles with that nasty tendency of his to run late, usually stumbling out of the apartment right at seven, hair uncombed, shoes half on, and still struggling into a sweater, Mikasa already waiting expectantly outside the door.

"Sorry about that," he says as they hop in the car five minutes late one Thursday morning.

"It's all right," she says, rifling through her bag.

"If it causes too much trouble, we don't have to do this anymore. I'd understand."

"Really," she replies, "it's fine. It's nice to hear someone other than the radio talk through my mornings."

They run into Armin in the parking lot, and the three greet each other accordingly

"Here," he says, handing Eren a wrapped parcel, "my grandpa told me to give you this."

"Thanks," Eren replies. "How is the old man? I've been meaning to stop by."

"Doing well. Mobility's probably his biggest challenge right now. I feel bad, leaving him alone all day. Of course, he says he doesn't mind."

Eren nods. "That sounds like the old man," he turns to Mikasa, who walks in silence on his other side, in conscious attempt to include her in the conversation: "I lived with Armin and his grandfather for a few years in high school," he says, holding open the door for both Mikasa and Armin to pass through.

She lifts her head towards him in silent thanks before glancing at the watch on her wrist. "Perhaps you two can tell me more at lunch," and she parts ways with them, heading to her room up in the science department.

"I'm meeting my first period in the library today," Armin says as the two reach a fork in the hallway. "She's really begun to open up," he adds as he looks back over his shoulder. "I'm glad we're getting to know her."

Eren inwardly agrees.

**. . . . .**

As scheduled, Koen meets up with him during his free period, a silent specter that hangs in the threshold of the doorway to the English office until Eren or another teacher calls him in.

"Shakespeare's tough," Eren explains, expanding on his introduction of the new text, _Romeo and Juliet_, from today, "the old English doesn't do us any comprehension favors as readers. That's the "fun" of it, I guess. In a way, we're technically reading a different language."

Koen purses his lips, his entire body rocking forward with the nod of his head.

"Anyways," Eren continues, pushing forward an outline from today's presentation on Shakespeare and a fill-in-the-blank worksheet for Act I Scene I, "just take it slow. You don't have to get through the first scene tonight, but just try to get through line one hundred fifty-eight. The worksheet will help you guide your reading."

"Okay," Koen replies.

"Why don't you go ahead and get started over here. I'll just be at my desk if you need any help. Oh, one more thing: the nice thing about this edition is that it gives a summary of the scene before the start. Refer back to that to check your understanding. And don't be afraid of the footnotes."

Eren returns to his desk not too far away, watching out of the corner of his eye as Koen stares at the book before him, tapping its edges on the table and spurring the pages against his thumb. Koen hangs his head and sighs before gritting his teeth and cracking the book open.

Things have improved. Not by much, but improvement is still improvement no matter how small. He's changed the seating arrangement: separating the chatty group in the back, and moving Koen up to the front where he can inconspicuously remind him to return focus with a gentle tap to the desk, providing him with notes that outline presentations and worksheets to guide comprehension, allowing extra time on assignments. All of it's _helping_—he seems to retain more information, and doesn't get distracted as often in class, but it's not enough. Not enough for his class alone, and certainly not enough for the rest of Koen's classes. Eren knows that.

The conference is next Friday. It'll be him, Ms. Petra Ral, Mrs. Klaus, and Koen. His palms sweat just thinking about it. As his first parent-teacher conference, this will be his first time on the other side of the desk, first time as the villain, first time as the asshole educator whose words will be misconstrued as malicious and condescending. The parents will be sure to hate him after this. Koen sure seems to.

The clock hits the halfway point for the period, and after reviewing what Koen has completed, clarifying some points, pointing out a few details—Eren spots a smirk when he mentions how Shakespeare was notorious for slipping in innuendos left and right-and commending him on his effort and success, dismisses him.

He experiences a twinge of hurt when Koen doesn't return his goodbye, but he reminds himself that he was, in many ways, the same with this sort of thing—worse, even. He resented extra help and extra accommodations, ignored outstretched hands, misinterpreted good intentions for pity or mockery, and misplaced his own insecurity onto his educators, told himself they thought him stupid and unteachable. How shocking—and a touch amusing—to find himself on the receiving end.

"Eren?" a voice rouses him from his thoughts, and he turns to face Krista, her small frame peeking into the English Department.

"What's up?" he asks, slightly surprised to see her.

"The copier down in the Music Department broke on us," she says, waving a sheet of paper, "you all won't mind if I borrow yours, will you?"

"Go right ahead."

She thanks him with that saintly smile of hers when she finishes making her copies. It's the sort of smile perpetually accompanied by its own chorus of angels. "No, you're not crazy," Armin once assured him when he asked, "it happens to me too. It's _weird_."

"I hope I'm not being too forward when I say this " Krista adds as she begins to leave, she twirls a piece of hair on a finger, "but I noticed that you and Armin often sit alone. If you'd like to join us at lunch today, our table has more than enough seats."

Eren looks up from the papers on his desk. He scratches his nose and clears his nose, hoping that he comes off more composed than he actually feels: "Yeah, sure. That's—thank you."

"I'm sorry we never invited you to sit with us earlier. That was thoughtlessness on our part."

"It's fine. No harm done."

Krista smiles again: "Oh," she turns back, "and make sure you bring Mikasa," and then she's gone.

He and Mikasa—they have an unspoken pact. Conceived on the day she finally took him up on his offer for tea, they may not have known each other for long, may not have gotten off on the best of starts, but they both desire a sense of something more—admittance into the realm of their peers, a feeling of belonging among others—and they're going to achieve it with the help of one another. So when he tells her about their new lunch arrangements in the break room, he's taken aback by her response.

"I don't know," Mikasa says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Come on, it'll be a good experience."

Lost in thought, it's as if she doesn't even hear him. Arms around herself, she retreats into herself. "I have to meet with a student today anyways," she finally says.

"Maybe tomorrow then?"

"Maybe," she replies.

The bell rings for the next period, and they part ways.

**. . . . .**

Not wanting to appear rude, he follows through regardless of being unaccompanied, and they more than understand when he explains at lunch.

"Why are you apologizing?" Ymir snears out, each word annunciated in a way that shoves him towards intimidated regret, "Do you really think it some unique circumstance?"

"Don't mind her," Krista chimes in.

"It would be best to be wary," Ymir grins a wolfish grin.

Krista's eyes disappear with her smile as she gently pats Ymir's arm, "She means that we all usually only stay for one half, and then meet with students the other half."

"Oi, who said you could put words in my mouth?"

"Ymir, you're going to scare him off!"

"Consider it a test of his courage,"

"Ymir!"

Unsure of what to make of the scene, Eren averts his eyes to his potatoes, when a foreign spoon inches its way onto his plate.

"Sasha!" Connie's voice rings out.

"What! I didn't do it!"

"You don't know him well enough to do that!"

"He wasn't eating his food! He's a _waster_."

"Sasha, I swear to _god_."

"It's all right," Eren interjects, "you can have them. I'm not that hungry."

He thinks he spots tears brimming in the corner of Sasha's eyes as she slides his plate over: "_Thank you,_" she whispers, and in the background Connie shakes his head solemnly.

"You don't understand what you've just done."

He's right. He doesn't.

Rather than contribute to the multiple conversations surrounding him, Eren instead let's himself soak in the table dynamic—he hasn't sat at a table with this many people since high school. Apparently, adults don't differ all that much from adolescents in their lunchtime banter—though perhaps that's because they're all really still in high school—side conversations dominate for the most part, occasionally overlapping, laughter and bickering erupt one right after the other, sometimes simultaneously, and when the entire table engages in group discussions, it's a struggle of volumes, a jumble of words, back and forth, back and forth, a refreshing sort of exhausting.

And when his peers leave for the halfway point, a mess of goodbyes flying at him amidst chattering and more bickering, he's left with the only other occupant of the table, the only one he hasn't heard speak yet.

"Annie Leonhardt, right?" he asks her.

The girl rolls her gaze to him, cold blue eyes piercing him from behind blonde bangs. "Yes," she says.

"So I take it you're not meeting with a student this half?"

She rises, taking her garbage and collecting the rest of her things. "No," she says without inflection before leaving Eren at the table alone.

He decides it best to head back up to the English Department in hopes of spending the rest of his lonely lunch productively, and takes a detour to the science wing. His steps seem to fall faster and faster as he nears the room, a detail he vaguely registers as odd, but an instinct he doesn't fight; he takes the stairs by twos, flies around blind corners, until finally, he peers into her classroom door.

The room rather dark, quiet and undisturbed, sunlight peeks through the gaps in the closed blinds. Squinting through the glass and through the dim, he spots her at one of the lab tables, sandwich held in both hands as she eats alone.

Eren raises a fist to knock, but stops short of the doorframe. She chose to eat alone in her room today for a reason. Suddenly, guilt settles in the pit of Eren's stomach, and as he retreats, he can't help but feel as if he's somehow at fault.

"Missed you at lunch today," he says later in the car.

"I had a student that needed the period to make up an exam. You know how it is," she stares out the passenger window, lets the curtain of her hair obscure her face.

"Yeah. Of course. It's no problem."

They drive the rest of the way home in silence.

**. . . . .**

When he throws his book bag on the floor, he starts at the unprecedented _thump_ of something rather hard against the floor, the corner of something wrapped in parchment sticks out of his bag.

Tearing through the paper, a tattered and faded copy of _The Gray's Anatomy_ lies beneath. Puzzled, Eren searches the wrappings for a note, any sort of explanation that the old man might've attached for him. Next, he checks the front cover, and stops there.

Scrawled in near print he hasn't seen in close to fifteen years is his father's signature, _Grisha Yeager_, scrawled at the top corner of the page. His thumb traces the lines, follows every rise and fall of the letters, feels as if he's reliving the very moment his father took a pen to the surface: watches his fingers gripping too tight around his utensil, pressing down forcefully as his wrist forms the figures in aggressive passivity, adding his signature a tedious formality that delays him from the useful contents that lie beyond the cover.

And then Eren flies through the pages, passes chapter and diagram, glances only briefly at the illustrations, the various systems drawn out, eyes instead intent on the notes that mark the margins, his father's writing filling the blank spaces, oftentimes illegible, or too muddled to discern without focused examination. Days later on, at night when his father's lost voice calls to him from the pages, he will read through each annotation in attempt to piece together this riddle left behind, his inheritance, attempting to untangle the mess of medical jargon and additional anatomical notes, and arrange it into some sort of message, decipher his father's code. But for now, he scrambles to his cell phone, furiously scrolling through his contacts and pressing the call button with such force, he thinks he may crack the screen.

"Eren?" Armin's voice answers on the fifth ring.

"Hey, is your grandpa there?"

"He actually just went to bed. Want me to wake him for you?"

Eren paces back and forth around his bedroom, _The Gray's Anatomy _in hand. He taps his fingers along the spine. "No, no that's all right," he says. "Actually, this weekend—do you mind if I stop by for a visit?"

"Not at all. He'll be so excited to hear that you're coming."

"Thanks. See you tomorrow?"

"I'll see you tomorrow. And Eren?" Armin asks, "Is everything all right?"

Cold sweat sits on the back of his neck, and his head pounds with an incessant buzzing. "Yeah. Everything's fine," he says. "Thanks again. And tell the old man I said hello."

"I will. Goodbye, Eren."

"Bye."

He lays face up on his bed a long while after that. He should be eating dinner, or grading papers, or organizing lesson plans, but his stomach churns and his head aches; there's no way he can keep anything down, no way he could do anything intelligible with his head buzzing like this, and so he steps outside and prays the night air will remedy his ailments.

A late-autumn breeze sends him shivering, winter's prelude biting at his neck and ears. For a moment, he considers running back inside for his coat-for even the moon, still used to summer heat, deems the night too unbearable, and hides her face in the cloak of the night—but decides against it. The cold, at least for now, calms his racing mind and churning stomach, and with each step and each breath he returns to himself, the whispers that fill his room—that seep from the book shoved underneath his bed-far, far away.

Walking the block, beneath the flickering streetlights, the night bites its tongue, eager for someone else to fill the void. No cars travel the street, no owl calls from a treetop roost, only his shoes against the pavement, each step a gentle tap, breaks apart this lock-and-key-lip night.

He keeps his mind on a tether, let's it wander but never stray, he resists this persistent beast, desperate for quiet since total silence always evades him. He doesn't think about the day his father left, doesn't think about his mother's funeral, doesn't think about the jagged pieces of puzzle scattered round him, how it keeps him up at night, how he sleeps less and less, he doesn't think about how his thoughts are beginning to eat him up alive.

Finished no thinking about anything, and finished circling the block, all the details of his walk distant and unrecallable, looking across the drive at the apartment building on the walkway that overlooks a view of the parking lot, he spots a lone figure leaning against the railing, a mere silhouette in the night.

"You're up late," Eren says, taking the last few steps on to the landing.

"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones," Mikasa replies. She turns to face him, and when he draws closer, he can pick out the smallest of smiles. Eren takes the spot on the railing next to her, and the pair stares out into nothingness together.

"I couldn't sleep," he says after a long. "Had to clear my head."

"And has it cleared?" she asks.

Eren shakes his head. He shivers despite the absence of the wind. "My mind hasn't been clear in a long time." From the corner of his eye he catches her face turn towards him, the moon of her features dimly lit in the residual lights on the street and in the lot. He becomes keenly aware of her figure not a foot away from his.

"Will you be all right?"

"I'll be all right," he says, " I always am. It's just inconvenient, keeping me up late," and then he groans, pinching the bridge of his nose, "We have school tomorrow."

Mikasa exhales, and Eren almost mistakes it for the whisper of the wind, its docility and softness just barely distinctive from the darkness's sigh rather than the breath of her lungs. He finds himself stretching towards it: doesn't recoil, doesn't huddle into his shirt, but longs for the sound, ears aching to hear it again.

But as he reaches out, she shrinks back, her own arms drawing tight around her, twin constricting serpents.

"Listen...Eren," she says, "today at lunch, I...I didn't-"

"It's all right," he cuts her off, spares her the confession. Intently, he looks her straight in the eyes, daring her not to look away. "It's all right."

Her throat drops and rises as she swallows, the hint of tears glinting at the corner of her eyes. "It's hard," her voice wavers, "learning new things, unlearning old ways...God, there's so much to unlearn."

"We don't have to sit with them if you don't want to," Eren replies. "We can go back to the way things were before."

"No. No, I want to _try_. I _have _to at least do that," she turns to face him. "Eren—tomorrow—is it all right if…"

"Of course. Of course it is."

For a few moments longer, they observe the passing night in each other's silent company: the chatter of the rustling leaves, the lone car that passes through their street, there and then gone, somewhere in the distance, a siren sounds.

The clock hits thirty past one when they decide to part ways; they exchange drowsy goodbyes and fatigued waves.

"Eren?" Mikasa calls out at the last minute.

He looks back over his shoulder. "Yeah?"

"I know it doesn't seem like it," she holds her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes downcast, "but I'm trying."

Eren looks at her hard. "I know. I know you are," he says, and he means it.

He returns to his room. And, his mind quiet, sleep descends upon him as soon his head hits the pillow.

**. . . . .**

Armin saves them seats on either side of him, a feat harder than you'd think with so many people crammed at one table. Immediately, the table breaks out into their usual chatter, most of it directed at their new guests—particularly at Mikasa. Both Krista and Sasha engage in separate conversations with her, and Eren spots that telltale sign in her posture—the one where she grows rigidly straight, expression so stoic it almost breeds the illusion of icy contempt. But when he locks eyes with her, giving her just the slightest of nods of the head, she relaxes her shoulders and loosens her clenched jaw.

Lunch goes well. The three of them partake in the discussion, interjecting here and there, even eliciting the occasional laugh from one of their peers. Eren finds himself intermittently glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, relieved to find her more relaxed, responsive to the conversation, engaged—though silently—in the table's ongoings. Something she says aside, with only a glint in her eyes, sends Sasha into distressed groaning and Connie into a fit of laughter; and though a complete outsider to that specific discourse, Eren finds himself suppressing a grin nonetheless.

Lunch goes so well, that when they're invited out to drinks this evening, _Mikasa_ accepts first out of the three of them.

"I've nothing going on tonight," she says, looking directly at Eren and Armin as she answers.

In a moment of disbelief, Eren's voice fails him.

"We'll be there," Armin says, giving Eren an inquisitive poke in the side.

**. . . . .**

From the passenger's side he catches glimpses of her in the back through his spinning vision, her flower blouse beneath her cardigan undone three buttons down, and he wonders when that happened, for she hadn't started out three buttons short at the beginning of the evening.

Wracking his brain for the moment, he sifts through the scenes of the night in search, recalling Connie and Sasha's rather rowdy game of pool, earning looks of disdain from the other patrons, Annie absent from the outing altogether, Ymir, completely sober, smirking while whispering something into the ear of a giggling Krista, undone by a single shot of Fireball, while the three of them—him, Armin, and Mikasa-sat just down the bar. Perhaps it happened after his third or fourth beer. Or maybe after the shot? Or had the shot come before that? Fuck.

They reach the apartment building before he ever figures it out. They fumble out as they exit the car, Eren showering Armin in compliments and Mikasa in thanks.

"Will you two be all right?" Armin leans out his window, eyebrows knit together.

"It's a glass of water and then straight to bed," Eren gives him a two-finger salute. "See ya later this weekend."

"Goodnight," Mikasa adds.

They watch as Armin drives away, taillights disappearing from view, before heading up to their building.

He watches in amusement as she sways from foot to foot as they walk to their apartments, as if there's a song playing in her head that she just can't stop herself from dancing to, her cheeks tinted with the heat from her last glass of wine. Her cardigan slides partially down her shoulder, revealing the ridge of her collarbone. He can't help but wonder what it tastes like.

"What're you smiling at?" she asks, looking at him curiously.

"Nothing," Eren lies, and he feels his smile split wider.

Frowning, an accusing brow raised, with her thumb, she brushes his bottom lip. "Than what's this?"

"You're drunk."

"You are too."

They stand toe to toe, her eyes, though her expression remains as composed as ever, shine like pieces of the night sky, and the moon of her face stares up at his fully, unashamed, unwavering. "Goodnight," she whispers. And his breath hitches in his throat.

Later, when he looks back on this moment, he will not be able to recall who leaned in first-if it had been him or her—but Eren Yeager finds himself with his lips on hers, kissing her hard, her fingers curling round the red fabric of his scarf as he presses all of him into her.

They part for a moment—only just a moment—eyes searching the other, half in shock of what they've just done, the other half for the look to indicate that this, right here, right now, is what the other wants, too. And then they rush together once again, second kiss more fevered, more hungry than the first, so incredibly eager to taste, and touch, and feel, whatever _this_ is that they feel between them.

Still wrapped in her, Eren fumbles with the lock and key, the simple task made all the more difficult with too many beers to count sloshing in his stomach, and her hands trailing lower, lower, grasping at the hem of his shirt, and, the door relenting with a clumsy shove, the pair usher inside.


	5. Chapter 5

**Warnings: sexual content**

**A/N: *twiddles thumbs guiltily* **

** P.S. Can you catch the pun I slipped in?**

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**5\. FORECAST: STEAMING HOT AND UP ALL NIGHT**

When her back collides with the wall, his hands so warm against her skin as they lift her face to his, back arching up to meet him, she vaguely registers that she has absolutely no idea what she's doing. She's never done this before. Never been kissed quite so passionately, never kissed back, never been so spontaneous. It's the wine. What else could it be? And besides—being spontaneous, seizing opportunities, this putting herself out there—this _is_ what she wanted, isn't it?

Regardless, she thought she knew herself better than this, thought her desires restricted to platonic company, a companion on the way to and from school, didn't think she craved hot breath and roving hands, burning fire skin that traps her against the wall; she thought herself reserved, controlled, disclosing everything at her own precise discretion, but when his groin rocks into her hips, a gasp, staccato and sudden, escapes from her lips, and _god_ she wants this so bad.

Catching her breath, lip trapped between her teeth, her eyes roll back and her brow furrows as his lips trail lower to taste the skin of her neck, and his hips press achingly into hers, filling her mind with visions of what's to come. And dizzy on the mix of him and the red wine, she fumbles, eagerly trying to tug his shirt over his head as he tries to wheel backwards, both of them simultaneously succeeding as they tumble on to the couch. She straddles his waist, and discards his scarf and shirt off to the side, and, eyes finding the taut definition of his chest and abdomen, rippling lean muscle that rises and falls with each heaving breath, the v-outline that dives beneath the hem of his boxers, she runs a single finger down the soft line of hair that leads down his center, flicking her gaze up to catch the shudder that runs through him, the pink that deepens on his cheeks, when she pulls the fabric down from his waist, leaving him bare.

He doesn't let her revel for long: drags the cardigan from her shoulders, undoes the buttons of her flower blouse one by one and sends it fluttering to the floor, kissing each new unveiled section of skin.

_I'm about to fuck the guy next door. _The thought passes through her mind like a bird flying past a window: there and then gone, only just registering on the conscious level. She can't even connect the dots from point A to B. She was just at the bar, sipping from her glass, giggling at something someone said, and now she's about to fuck the guy next door. She's letting her coworker run his tongue over her breasts. She's helping her only friend undo her belt, letting his hand slip beneath her underwear and moaning at his touch. Can they even really call themselves friends after this?

But it's so damn hard—impossible—to think of the future repercussions, to think of anything but his length, stiff and hard, pressing against the inside of her thigh, his teeth at the sweep of her neck, and then his lips on hers again. And as he hoists her up in his arms, her legs instinctively wrapping around his waist as he carries her into the bedroom, Mikasa supposes that it will all make sense in the morning.

He lays her out across his unmade sheets, shoves a couple of t-shirts and books out of the way before, still kissing her—his breath stale with beer and hers, she assumes, with wine—spreads her thighs with the warm palm of his hand, slipping in a finger, and then another, into her aching core.

A moan tears through her, and her hands fly up to cover her mouth. The steady rhythm he adopts drives her breathless and hazy towards that edge, and even as she begins to sober up from the earlier portion of a night, plunging her immediately back into a state of dizzying ecstasy. This foreign ground, uncharted territory, bears fruit she has never tasted until now, sweet on her tongue and overwhelming, her hips flexing, arching up towards him at his rhythm of his fingers draws from her sigh and groan.

And, her breath ragged, her hand slips down to caress his length, the nagging insecurity in the back of her mind about her sexual incompetence diminishing a great deal at the jolt of his hips, but then he pulls away, his fingers leaving her body aching in unfulfillment; he rises over her on hands and knees.

"D'you—?" he inquires, his figure looming above her. His eyes, emerald green and bright even in the dark, travel over her, and she feels his gaze everywhere, the same as if it were his hands that saw for him: they touch her kiss-swollen lips, the sweep of her neck to her clavicle, rising and falling with each breath, her breasts—petite yet full—pebbled nipples hard and raised, belly that falls into her hips, the milky skin of her thighs and what lies between them, longing for his touch, desperate for him.

"I want you," Mikasa breathes, voice strained, and she affirms her confirmation, bucking her hips up against his.

The anticipation grows as she spreads herself for him, as she watches him position himself at her core. She closes her eyes, and can't help but hold her breath, throwing her head back in a silent moan and he pushes into her little by little, filling her completely. And then they begin to move.

He sets the pace, rocks with her, against her, his body burning hot at the touch, and her hips rise and fall to meet his every thrust, the both of them hurried and eager to glean whatever pleasure they can from the body of the other. All concept of time evades her. One moment each stroke leaves and enters her agonizingly measured and paced, and the next he moves with indulging abandon, with thrusts she cannot match, only receive as she finds purchase in the broadness of his shoulders. And when she comes, hips jerking, pulling him deeper, closer, writhing beneath him as he follows her, emptying himself into her with three final, punctuated thrusts, she cries out. The sound of her voice resonates in the night.

In the wake come their shuddering sighs, their heavy and steadying breaths. All the alcohol is purged from her body, and yet what she feels is far from what she'd refer to as sobriety.

She feels him leave her, feels his fingers trail down her stomach, and reach between her thighs, pressing into her; sensitive, she whimpers.

"Better be quiet," Eren mumbles into her skin before pressing a deep kiss to her mouth, "the girl next door set a bag of shit on fire last time I made noise past eleven,"

Mikasa retaliates with a tug to his lower lip. And her hands reach down to find him again.

**. . . . .**

When Mikasa Ackerman wakes the next morning, she doesn't recognize the ceiling glaring down at her, doesn't recognize the linen that she lays out on, and at first she can't figure out the reason for her state of undress, but then she turns, facing whatever lays on the other side. Oh. Yeah.

Fuck.

On the opposite side of the bed, curled up all the way to the edge leaving as much space as allowed between them—it seems as if even in their tipsy, post-coital bliss they both knew, they always knew—he sleeps turned away from her, the blankets resting at his hips; his messied—more messied than usual—hair sticks out every which way, and the muscles in his shoulders and back light something residual in the pit of her stomach, the remaining embers from last night's fire that glow at the simple caress of a breath, and she quickly pushes it away.

Instantly, any morning drowsiness vanishes leaving only abrupt, unwelcome clarity. Later, when urgency and adrenaline don't dominate her thoughts, when she's safe in the privacy of her own room, she'll feel the nagging soreness in her hips, her thighs, her back; and when she soaks in the bath, washing away a night of blind passion and red wine, she'll have the leisure for regret and embarrassment, find they don't wash off as readily as his scent from her skin. But for now, escape is her immediate concern; she slips out of bed soundlessly, and perhaps if she leaves the sheets, the room, his side, undisturbed, without a trace, it'll be as if the night before never existed. It will reside only in dreams.

Her floral blouse and panties are no where to be seen—not strewn across his bedroom floor, not by the door where she left them—but she finds the rest of her things as well as two condom wrappers on the bedside table (_Two_? They did it _twice_?) and she registers the pair with hurried, dull relief.

Half dressed—only in her bra and cardigan, which, thank god, covers her ass—she scours the rest of the apartment for the rest of her belongings when an alarm sounds. Its ringing shatters the silent, building tension of the morning, and, spooked by the sound of rustling of sheets, a stretching exhale from the room over, Mikasa rushes out of the apartment, panties and floral blouse abandoned.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Thank you to those of you who left reviews on that last chapter. You all are such sweethearts I don't even know what to say, oh my goodness gracious.**

**While writing this, I realized how much I hate the word panties. Oh my god. There are no good synonyms. Terrible, horrible word.**

**Warnings: profane language, brief mature content**

* * *

**6\. WHY COULDN'T THIS HAVE BEEN AN AWKWARD SEX DREAM?**

When he wakes up, head pounding from last night, at first he thinks it's all a dream. Eren Yeager lies in bed, forearm over his eyes as he waits for the blacksmith in his head to set down his hammer and anvil, and tries to piece together the strangeness of his dream. The beer, the shots—those were all real, he can feel that in his skull, in his chastising stomach—but the rest of it: her body, lithe and warm, beneath him, her soft moans in his ear, sloppy and feverish kisses down the expanse of her belly, hazy images interspersed with brief moments of clarity. He's overwrought with guilt for this subconscious fantasy—she's his _friend_, the girl next door, he shouldn't be thinking of her like that—but he can't help but replay the scenes he has in his mind over and over, can't help the heat gathering in his abdomen as he thinks of his hips pressed flush against hers, of sliding inside her…Fantasy, dreams—they're both entirely harmless.

With a groan, Eren rolls over to check the time on the nightstand, blindly, his hand reaches over to grab at the clock. Tapping at the wood, his fingers sweep past the flimsy covers of two books, a tube of chapstick, they close around two empty wrappers.

Fuck.

Shooting out of bed, Eren stares at the condemning evidence in his hand, suddenly finds his own nakedness threatening. This can't be happening. They didn't. They _couldn't_ have. He looks frantically about the room for something out of place: a message written in the sheets, bruises on his neck, lipstick on his skin—he finds nothing, and yet two condom wrappers lay in the palm of his hand…

And then her voice echoes in his ears. _I want you._ I want you. This entire ordeal becomes laughable. It was only a dream. It has to be. _I want you_. It's too unreal, too out of character. She doesn't think of him that way, and he doesn't think of her like that either. It was only a dream. And one sex dream of the girl next door does not sexual attraction or romantic interest make. It was the work of the booze. They didn't. They couldn't have. There's no plausible way. No one would ever. Not with him. He discards the peculiar condom wrappers in the trash and decides to think nothing else of it—stranger things have wound up in his possession without his knowledge before.

He pulls a pair of pants out from beneath his bed, and _The Grey's Anatomy_ slides out with it. His fingers trace the cover; he's supposed to meet up with Armin's grandfather today for brunch at half past twelve. The clock reads a quarter to the hour, and, with a series of curses, Eren hops to his feet, and rushes to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

. . . . .

A lot of memories reside within this house. Three years of lucidity keep this place trapped in time; there, on the porch, he and Armin stood side by side in their caps and gowns, Armin donned in cord after cord of honors and awards, and Eren in his unruly hair that hung over his eyes, and that single gage through his left ear (what had he been thinking?), both of them grinning, and both of them college bound; here, to the left of him just off the cobblestone path, he'd wretched into the hydrangeas after a raucous, whirlwind night, staggering back at three in the morning to Armin's grandfather waiting up in the living room with a glass of water, and some bread, and an expression of silent disappointment, unaccompanied by any sort of lecture; beneath that tree, he and Armin spent the summers in its shade, sweat dripping down their noses onto the pages of books and notebooks, poems of adolescent melodrama passionately scrawled onto the lines; there, on that rooftop, he'd lay out under the stars, each light a reminder that there was something beyond all this, that somewhere, that same moon reflected on the calmness of an ocean, an ocean so vast and deep it could drown all this pain and unknown, make him whole again. There, on that rooftop, he would pretend the tears on his cheeks were the spray of the sea, imagined himself leaping, diving into the cool, heavy water. A lot of memories reside within this house. And perhaps that's why he hasn't returned in so very long.

Ringing the doorbell instead of just walking in feels strange. Too formal. Too unfamiliar. He wonders, vaguely, when it was he became a visitor, but in retrospect, he always has been.

Armin answers the door: "Hello."

"Hey. Thanks for driving last night."

"Not a problem. Did you and Mikasa make it up to your apartments okay? Are you all right?"

Eren pinches the bridge of his nose. A segment of that wretched dream flashes before him—her lips on his neck as he fumbles with the key, her collarbone beneath his lips. He buries it hastily under a layer of will power. "Sorry. Headache. But yeah, we made it all right."

It's strange, following Armin, as a guest, through the house he called home for three years. With each step deeper into the house, he walks deeper and deeper into the past, every picture frame and flower vase in the exact place he left it all those years ago. Perhaps he's walking through an old photograph. Though not everything's the same.

"Grandfather's in the back room," Armin says, coming to a halt.

"Won't you join us?"

"I've got some errands," Armin replies. "I won't be too long,"

They are not the same. Of course neither one of them called or visited as much as they should've in college or the years after that, but Eren had always thought that all that time, all those memories—childhood, adolescence, those rough high school years—had thought it'd be enough. Thought theirs was the friendship, the brotherhood, to withstand the erosion of separation, the weathering of absence, thought they could resume where they left off. But he and Armin—they are not the two boys they used to be. They are too formal, too distant, too polite in mannerisms and speech; they have become the hollow housewife's smile, the corpse's morticianed makeup. They have forgotten how to be. Missed calls, canceled invitations—it is all his fault.

"Stop in when you get back, will you?"

"Of course," Armin says.

Eren leads himself in, registering the sound of the television blaring what sounds like an English announcer to one of those nature shows.

"Hope I'm not interrupting," Eren says.

"Eren, my boy!" the old man exclaims from his stately throne upon the couch, robed in two blankets, one pulled over his shoulders and the other draped over his legs. "Not at all, not at all. It's been too long," the hug he pulls Eren in is still strong, still sends his bones protesting in the most reassuring of ways. "Grab a seat." He mutes his program just as a pair of orangutans swing across the screen.

They start out as they always used to, the checkered board between them. _There's no better game than chess_, the old man would say, _it requires the development of strategy, simultaneously playing defense and offense, imposing and relieving pressure on your opponent, prioritizing. But most importantly, it's just good fun._

"I got the book you sent with Armin. My father's old one."

"Ah, yes, found that one while we were cleaning out the attic. I thought it best that you should have it. There's a couple of other things up there, too—some old albums, a few of your mothers trinkets—I had Armin set them aside in your old room if you'd like to take a look."

The initial surge of curiosity hits hard. Old relics. New clues. But his father had taken every last one of his things when he'd left them. He won't find answers, only pain—reminders of the wholeness of his mother before the illness, how she withered beyond recognition in her final days. And yet, he can't help himself, can't help the intrigue.

"I think I will," Eren replies.

"The first move is yours."

Eren moves a pawn to one of the center squares. The old man smiles.

"You've changed a lot over the years. Your starting move, however, has not."

Armin was always the better player. Eren remembers Sundays watching the two of them play, their games lasting for hours (that, or perhaps it was that when he woke from his nap, they were already halfway through another match), marveling at the two of them move the pieces around the board with such purpose and intent, every turn calculated, part of a greater plan. But the Arlerts are as good teachers as they are chess players. He was actually a rather competent player in the end. He could control, to an extent, the area of pressure around the board, had relatively strong defense skills that could delay the defeat, came close to winning quite a handful of times. Today, Eren loses in four moves.

Mr. Arlert eyes him, amused. "A little rusty?"

"Incredibly out of practice."

"We'll call that one a warm-up," Mr. Arlert says with a smile. They set the board back up again

He's much more cautious this time, sets up a decent defensive formation.

"That's more like it," Mr. Arlert says, drawing forth one of his knights.

Eren surveys the board, dusting the cobwebs from the cupboards of his mind, hoping to devise some sort of weak-framed strategy, but his thoughts wander. They seem to do that a lot in this house. He remembers sitting in this very same seat, still dressed in his funeral suit and wiping his nose on his sleeve, crying with relief to learn he could stay with them, that he wouldn't be sent away. And then he remembers waking up in the middle of the night to a callused hand brushing the bangs of his forehead, whiskers tickling his cheek as someone kissed him, faint whispers in the hall, the sound of the front door closing. He remembers looking up at his mother as she stared blankly at the empty seat at the breakfast table across from her, he remembers asking after his father. _He's away for work, _she told him, _But he'll be back—just not for a long while. _He hadn't even come home for the funeral four years later.

"You're not having a stroke on me, are you? You're still a bit too young for that," the old man quips.

Eren apologizes, hastily moving forward another pawn rather than castling like he'd originally intended. "Spaced off again," he tries to explain.

The old man returns his smile, but he arches, ever so slightly, a sparse, snowfield eyebrow, as if to say: _It's something else. I know. _He always knows.

And a part of him wants desperately to confide in the man who looked after him for four years, the man who took him in, promised him safe haven for as long as he chose to accept it. Eren wants desperately to tell him about how his father's absence torments him, how he's been searching for this defect within himself, within their family, that drove him away, that these questions keep him up night after night, and how he blasts his father's records because maybe then he'll understand the missing man whose fragments pierce him like shrapnel. He wants to apologize for never visiting, for not calling as much as he should; grateful and indebted as he is, being here is like being back in those troubled high school days. Being here unearths the hurt left in his father's disappearance, brings it to the front of his consciousness, festers as obsession. Being here rips open the wound of his mother's death, makes it feel as if she died yesterday.

"I should've come by sooner—more often," Eren says.

Across from him, those brown eyes glint behind a pair of spectacles. In his beard and mustache, traces of brown and a more youthful time persist. The old man brings his queen forward. "I'm not going anywhere soon," he replies.

. . . . .

Braving the stairs is a much more cumbersome feat with his arms wrapped around a box filled with old albums and his mother's ceramics. The plastic bag of leftovers that the old man _insisted_ he take along hanging on his elbow also doesn't help. Eren Yeager survives—but just barely—and as he slams his front door closed behind him he releases the box carefully to the ground before dragging himself across the room to collapse on top of the couch. He closes his eyes, ready to fall asleep, when his fingers brush against something incredibly soft and familiar just under the couch. Eren glances down. And then he wishes he didn't.

He'd been so sure it was a dream this morning. Wanted to believe it. Needed to believe it. But Eren finds it so hard to deny the reality of last night as he stares at a floral blouse in one hand, and a pair of women's panties in the other. Fuck. This does, of course, explain the various oddities littering his apartment: why his clothes from last night are over here by the couch, his earlier state of undress, the condom wrappers (_Twice? _They did it _Twice_?). The fabric of the blouse is worn, soft to the touch, and he grabs hold of yet another memory from last night—fiddling with the buttons of her blouse, rolling her pebbled nipples between his teeth, sliding her panties down her hips, and caressing her ass on the way down. Eren groans. Fuck. Could they _really_ have been that drunk last night? What have they done?

Eren collapses on his bed in exasperation, burying his face in the sheets before groaning again. It's faint but there, the whisper of her Japanese Cherry Blossom perfume. _I want you_—or had it been, _I want this—_if only one part of his night ends up being a construction of his own fantasy, it would be that. _I want you. I want this. _Both sound equally implausible as they rush through his mind.

He plugs in his headphones, turns it up until his skull pounds—anything to drown out this internal noise. But shit. He lives _next door_ to this girl. They _work_ together, they _carpool_. She consists of half of his friends. God dammit, he's slept with his best friend (_Twice_. They did it _twice_.) and she snuck out this morning—what the hell does that mean? Do they act like nothing's happened? Erase it from existence? She must be just as embarrassed about all this as he. Perhaps she hates him. That must be it. After all, he hates himself right now, too.

But what are they supposed to do the next time they see each other? Because they _will_ see each other. They sit at the same lunch table. They share a _wall_. Does he greet her as he normally does? God, he won't even be able to look her in the eye. He can feel his face burning red just thinking about it. Out of all the apartments in the city, he got landed in this one, with this room, next door to her. Just his luck. It appears as if human nature only carries one so far as the foreplay and climax—there's no natural intuition to assist him now, once again fully clothed, once again painfully sober.

They could, of course, just never see each other again. He could uproot himself, quit this job that he desperately needs, throw all of his belongings into the trunk of his car, and drive, and drive, and drive until whatever little money he has left runs out. Grade A idea. Eren rolls on his side, her pantie his gaze falling on her blouse and panties resting on the nightstand. Right. He should really return those to her.

But the idea of walking a door down to drop off her belongings—it increases his chances of running into her, she could open the door on him, they'd have to go through that agonizing process of performing forced pleasantries, both of them would have to deal with the shame of the exchange of her underwear. He could always just leave them in front of the door, but there's the chance that a neighbor might pass by, and two people too many already know about this entire mess. No need for one more.

Of course, isn't returning her things to her confirming the existence of last night? Isn't it the same as ringing, and appearing before her to say, I know what happened last night, and you do, too. Here are the things you abandoned, decided to forget, when you chose to sneak away this morning instead of facing what we did. It's all right. I would have done the same.

In the end he settles on setting her clothes outside her door in an old Italian takeout bag, concealed and inconspicuous. The task is much more complicated than anticipated; he devotes twenty minutes debating on whether to fold her clothes or not. The latter is messy, untidy, and though his reputation is far from neat and orderly, something about such an unceremonious delivery just seems so wrong, as if he's throwing her things and all of last night into an old paper bag without so much as a second thought, as if he couldn't care less—and yet, isn't that what he wants? The former is not so much the opposite—it's even more ambiguous, perhaps—but the suggestion of intimacy is still there, the suggestion of his acknowledgement of what happened last night on his living room couch, his bed, the suggestion of his fingers running over the fabric of her blouse once more as he re-buttons the buttons, folds it meticulously, perfectly, fingers once more at the waistband of her panties as he places them delicately on top. Maybe he's over-thinking this.

Finally, Eren places the Italian carryout bag on her doormat with her clothes—folded—inside. He raises a fist, inhales, raps twice, and hurries back to his own apartment before she can catch a glimpse of him. In the safety of his bedroom, he sets a record out, takes a couple deep breaths, pulls out papers that need grading, and tries to carry on with the rest of his day. Tries.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Mixing things up this chapter and splitting it between both Mikasa and Eren's POVs. My school year's almost finished, and I'll have more time to write what I like. Thanks you, in the meantime, for being patient. **

**Warnings: there's a few quick lesson in anatomy, sexual situations mentioned in passing**

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**7\. THIS HAS BEEN, BY FAR, THE WORST WEEK EVER**

She's been trying to forget about it this entire week: hot hands on the backs of her thighs and hips snapping into place against hers, warm breath on her neck, coarse moan in her ear, the muscles in his back tightening beneath her fingers as she came and he followed. It is so hard to forget. They share a wall, work at the same school—it's as if the universe _wants_ her to remember.

And of course—would the universe have it any other way?—this _had _ to be the week in biology they talk about the reproductive system. As if she knew that she'd be getting laid the weekend before this unit when she'd been planning out the class schedule at the beginning of the quarter. Perhaps she's angered some omnipotent god.

Thank goodness it's Friday. Thank goodness tomorrow's the beginning of Thanksgiving Break. The week has not been kind. Over the course of five days she's given the sex talk on a molecular level to about ninety awkward freshmen, displayed a diagram of the male phallus on the overhead—or, at least, just the testicles; apparently the publishers thought displaying the entire male penis was too much—and graded too many papers to count regurgitating all this information back to her. Reproductive system week is, by far, the worst week. Today, as she pulls up her male reproductive system diagram, most of her students are too busy trying to look anywhere _but _at the screen to notice that she's blushing today, too, too busy trying to appear as uninterested and aloof as possible. Ironic, considering how the penis seems to be their favorite shape to draw. Thankfully, no one seems to have any questions, and her students all scurry as fast as they can out the door with the end of class bell.

Mikasa looks over her shoulder once last time at the sad, shaftless pair of testicle behind her, and shudders, cringes when she can't help but think of the satisfying feeling of him filling her, sliding inside. God dammit.

The lesson once again manages to kill her appetite—conveniently just before her lunch period—but Mikasa pulls out her sandwich nonetheless, and, trying not to think about the empty chair between Armin and Eren in the cafeteria, forces herself to take a bite.

. . . . .

Thank goodness it's Friday. Thank goodness tomorrow's the beginning of Thanksgiving Break. The week has not been kind. She's been avoiding him since last Friday night, and he's been doing the same: her spot sits long vacated on the mornings, and he goes out of his way to return home late enough that he knows no chance of an encounter exists. He alters his hallway route, eats lunch in his own room—tells Krista, Ymir, and Armin that he has a mountain of papers to grade—avoids the coffee machine in the faculty lounge.

He's an English teacher. There has to be a word for this spinning in his head, this odd combination of not quite embarrassment but certainly not shame, heart beating so fast it nauseates. In all the English language, there must be a word for regretting something you're not certain you'd decline if presented with the chance again, a word for the self-loathing that feasts on this very vice. He's been wracking his brain for the perfect word since Sunday night. As a result, he's not sleeping well, and when he does, that cursed night plagues his mind. He loses his train of thought in front of his students, forgets his lesson plans, runs into first period late. His students keep leaving their biology notes and worksheets in his class (nice to see they're making good time with the independent time he gave them to plan out their essays) and of course they're on the reproductive systems—it'd be much too convenient to study digestion, or respiration, or circulation this week of all weeks. This week has not been kind.

Currently, Eren Yeager power walks at automobile-like speed down the hallways (he's finally mastered the technique of keeping himself from all but running) frantic and decently sweaty for this parent-teacher conference with Mrs. Klaus along with the social worker, Ms. Petra Ral, to discuss Koen. His first legitimate parent-teacher-counselor conference as the teacher. Eren has half a mind to power walk straight out of the school. If there's one thing he's learned over the course of his teaching career is that, without fail, parents are the worst. Aggressive, demanding, and accusatory, there's never a right way to do his job—only best worst options and tactics meant to appease instead of teach. And telling them their child has a learning disability seldom makes things better.

But Mrs. Klaus is neither aggressive nor accusatory, but rather a soft-spoken middle-aged, single mother. She smiles politely when Eren stumbles into the counselor's office a minute late, assures him it's not a problem when he apologizes for his tardiness. She listens intently as Ms. Ral explains things, presents the findings from other teachers, calling upon Eren every once and a while to elaborate, nodding her head and asking the occasional question.

"Reading has never been Koen's strong suit, and he's always had concentration issues, but dyslexia? It never occurred to me that…"

"Dyslexia sometimes goes undiagnosed until secondary education. It is worth noting, though, that this doesn't at all mean that your son isn't intelligent, or that he can't be successful, Mrs. Klaus," Ms. Ral explains, "It just means that he learns and works differently, and it's our job as educators to accommodate in any way we can."

"Of course," Mrs. Klaus replies. "So what's the next step?"

"The next step would be to set up a 504, an individualized plan which would provide Koen with a supportive learning environment and the accommodations that would best help him achieve academic success. Koen is already receiving accommodations from his teachers—like Mr. Yeager here—in the form of extra time on projects and tests, alternative testing, and breaks as needed; a 504 plan would just solidify these accommodations for future years in school—it actually carries over to college—and for standardized testing for when he takes either the ACT, SAT, or AP tests."

Mrs. Klaus nods her head. "And this will all help Koen?"

"He's been making huge improvements between the extra time for assignments and taking the initiative to come in for extra help already," Eren interjects. The two women turn to him, both rather small in frame with eyes not unkind, and yet suddenly he feels very small. Has he offended her? Is he out of line? "The 504 isn't mandatory," he struggles not to stammer, "but based on the progress he'd already made, I really feel it would benefit Koen now and down the road."

He sucks in a breath, tries to melt into his chair, but Mrs. Klaus looks straight at him. And maybe it's just because her eyes are a similar hue of brown, or because she wears her curly hair pulled to a ponytail on the side, but he thinks of his own mother sitting in this exact spot, speaking to teacher after teacher, counselor after counselor, school psychologists and social workers, thinks about how he felt like such a burden, how he still feels that way sometimes, how odd it is to sit on the other side of that table and see that it's not that way at all.

But since he talked to Mr. Arlert, he sees his mother everywhere: smells her pie in the aroma wafting up from the Family Consumer Sciences kitchens on Monday, hears her sigh, the whisk of her broom, at the array of leaves swept into the foyer by students—she always used to chide him about not trekking in dirt on his shoes—sees her with her nose wrinkled in disdain at the arrangement of fake flowers sitting on the head librarian's desk. He spends too many nights thinking back to that time when she broke her soft demeanor, looked him hard in the eyes and forced him to walk to the Arlert's house after that week long disagreement with Armin, told him he couldn't let a friendship like this slip away on account of his foolish pride.

Eren has yet to look through the old photo albums he collected from the Arlerts, but already her presence is everywhere, consuming him, drowning him. So long ago, he swept his mother away beneath his bed, focusing instead on the specter of his father, the specter he could be mad at for leaving, the man who had a choice and chose to abandon ship. It was easier that way, easier to justify this anger than the unwarranted betrayed abandonment that clung to him in that hospital room.

Breaking into his reverie, Mrs. Klaus smiles, speaks: "How do we get started?"

And Eren knows what he has to do.

. . . . .

She dares a trip into the break room to steal a coffee peering warily around before entering, and then peeking over her shoulder every other moment as she pours herself a cup. She marvels half in part in her ability to fall so hard back on old habits, half in part that she ever thought she could deviate. And she had tried to change, didn't she? Tried, for a time, to engage in the company of others, tried for a night, to cast her inhibitions into the wind, let unadulterated desire drive her actions. But this—this solitude, this lone existence—is who she is. It is who she always has been. As her mother used to say, the man who begs for plums from the crabapple tree will only receive a bitter taste on his tongue.

"Mikasa," a voice calls behind her.

Mikasa jumps, coffee splashing out of the cup and on to her hand. Waving the burn away, she turns. "Hello, Armin. You startled me."

He apologizes. "I've missed you at lunch this week. Work keeping you busy?"

"You could call it that. Though I'm sure you and Eren are getting along fine without me."

"Actually, Eren's been tied up at lunch, too. It's just me—and the rest of the table, of course."

Armin's eyes disappear into his smile, and Mikasa feels a twinge of guilt, detects a hint of sadness in his over-zealous expression, and suspects that she, somehow, is a part of it, but can't help but feel a stronger surge of relief that Eren can't seem to face her either. It gives the situation a sense of mutualism, that they have, in their own silent way, come to an agreement.

"Don't be," Armin replies when she apologizes for her absence. "It happens to the best of us."

"I'll be sure to come back after break—when my work load lessens."

"No rush," Armin assures her, beginning to head out. "I'll see you later—perhaps over break?"

"Yes, of course, I'll call you," Mikasa says. But she has never, in her life, called or texted anyone first—her contact list is absolutely barren to begin with—and it's not that she dislikes Armin, or doesn't enjoy his company, it's just that deep down, despite what she says, she knows she'll never dial that call.

This is who she is, she reminds herself. This is who she always has been. She's already tried to change, and already, she's tired of failing.

With a sigh, she takes a sip of her coffee. She read an article earlier this week about coffee in relation to elevated stress, coffee as a dependency, told herself she had enough stress in her life, thank you very much, and resolved to cut back. This is her fifth cup today—the most coffee she's had since the last time she pulled that one, accursed allnighter in college. So much for cutting back.

Maybe it's a matter of finding a brand, but tea just isn't doing it for her, does nothing to assuage her drowsiness. Sleep, of course, would probably do the trick, but those moments don't come easy or often. The nights have become her most vivid hours, plagued by a mind that churns and churns as the hands of the clock at her bedside spin round and round the face, etching shadows into the spaces beneath her eyes. Even with the blankets pulled up to her chin and hot tea in her stomach, even though she hasn't seen or spoken to him, even though she doesn't care if she ever sees or speaks to him again, even though none of this _means_ anything, once again the boy on the other side of the wall has rendered her sleepless.

At night, when she listens hard enough, she can hear the faint hint of his music playing through the wall, another incoherent whisper in the night—perhaps if only he played it a little louder, if she could just make out the words, recognize the song, all of this reeling in her head would calm, and she could sleep again. Yes, that's it. It's that song he plays, that same song. It's the same as that picture frame tilted slightly to the right, a bouquet of flowers set not quite right. It is just another simple, trivial, meaningless detail of life's monotony that nags at the brain. She needs only adjust the picture frame, reset the flowers.

But still come the moments where she forgets to not feel lonely, feels his lips on her neck and forgets to regret, forgets her indifference. One night she'd even taken the blouse he'd returned and pressed it to her nose, inhaled deeply to see if a touch of his scent lingered. In the confusion she remembers the thrill of having someone to talk to on the ride to and from school, the exhausting and yet invigorating sensation of the raucous lunch table, and maybe she hates to admit it, but maybe she misses his company, wishes, with all her heart, that things could go back to the way they used to be.

Maybe, in time, they'll stop avoiding one another, start saying hello again in the halls. Perhaps one day she'll be able to hear his name in conversation without her cheeks going immediately red at the thought of his hips rolling into hers, his tongue lapping at her belly. But that day is not today, and it's certainly not tomorrow. And the friendship they had preceding all of this—utterly unsalvageable. They fucked up. Quite literally. And there's no going back after that.

Checking her wrist watch, Mikasa suppresses a groan: ten minutes until she has to introduce the Sexual Response Cycle to her AP students. Despite strategically placing the introduction to this lesson before break, and assigning all the corresponding reading during break, next period is a guaranteed shit show. Her seniors—notoriously rowdy, with senses of humor much too clever for their own good—won't handle this lesson quite as gracefully and quietly as their timid, freshman peers. She can already hear the snickers that will follow the mention of Stage 1, Excitement, the cheers and clapping at the mention of Stage 3, Orgasm. The dread for next period almost stops her from running through the events of last Friday night (she still can't quite place when they'd moved from Recovery to that second round of Excitement). Almost. This time, Mikasa doesn't bother to suppress a groan of frustration. Dammit. Reproduction Week is the worst week.

Mentally preparing herself for the hell to come, Mikasa knocks back the rest of her coffee.

. . . . .

He must have some unconscious death wish. That can be the only explanation. But why else would he have reverted back to his adolescent self, staring down the face of the clock, waiting for the second hand to strike the hour? Why else would he bolt from his desk at the sound of the bell tone, before any of his kids have time to sling their backpacks over their shoulders? Why else would he be near sprinting down the halls, past students filing out of their classes, beelining for the science wing? He doesn't even know what he's going to say.

He catches her as she walks down the hall, brisk pace slowing to a stop as they come face to face. It has only been a week since he last saw her, but a week is enough for the vision of her to make him stare for longer than he would. Today, her dark hair brushes against her shoulders, hangs about her face differently than he remembers. Her eyes, he swears, shine brighter this time than the last, and she wears a dress he's never seen before—a simple gray thing, her collarbones peek out from it, and the fabric skims over her hips to fall just above her knees. He marvels and then scorns the lighting and its antics as it casts a shadow upon the swell of her breasts, the dip into the space between her thighs, casts a shadow of that midnight hour pressed close against her. A heat ignites in the pit of his stomach at the memory, and relentlessly he forces it away, tried not to let the embarrassment steal its way upon his face. It would be too unfair to be so overt—especially here, now, where he can't read her at all.

The hallway around them bustles with kids gathering their things, voices raised and ready after a sedentary day of quiet listening to teachers and taking tests, eager for the beginning of Thanksgiving Break. Lockers slam shut, and bodies move every which way like multiple creeks that spill through and around one another. The pink of her tongue peeks out to lick her lips before she opens her mouth to speak, but she thinks better of whatever it is she's going to say, and beckons him wordlessly to follow her into a vacant classroom.

He stops only a few paces into the room, hesitantly closing the door behind him. Across the room, she stands silhouetted against the windows, soft autumn light whispering in, caressing her neck and jaw as it passes through. They stand so far away from each other, the distance between unconquerable and vast. Perhaps they've always been this way: far off and distance. Maybe Friday wasn't a wedge between them, but a rising curtain, unveiling what was there from the start.

Eren's throat goes dry. He doesn't want to be here. This was a bad idea. But he remembers his mother pushing him forward, head bent and angry and embarrassed tears stinging his eyes, towards Armin standing on the steps waiting to reconcile, remembers her telling him, you lose the things you don't speak up for. Don't let this friendship go.

"How...how are you?" he asks as he rubs the back of his neck, wonders when it was he forgot how to speak.

She casts her eyes downwards as if to ponder this difficult question, as if he's asked her to explain the science behind the weather, elaborate on gravity. And then he realizes how complicated a simple, "how are you?" question can be: do you give them the default answer—I am well. I am fine. An inauthentic formality often followed by a handshake, hurriedly called out in the split second two people pass by one another, not really making eye contact. Or do you tell them the complete and unaltered truth, no matter how unpleasant or grating: I'm incredibly nervous, thanks for asking. You can probably see my pit stains, if you look hard enough, and I'm praying you don't notice the bead of sweat rolling down my neck. I'm trying not to think of your breasts, and my tongue, and my tongue on your breasts. It isn't working. How are you—what a loaded question, a _bad_ question. And it's only natural, of course, that bad questions garner bad answers.

So when Mikasa replies, "I'm all right," he wonders what else he possibly could have been expecting,

"Look, about last Friday—" he begins.

"We were both drunk."

"We weren't thinking."

"It was never supposed to go that far."

"Or go that way at all."

"It was a mistake," she says, and his brow furrows as she looks at him in a way that is completely indiscernible. And yet he senses the urgency, the silent plea for validation.

Eren nods his head in agreement. "Yes," he says, "it was all a mistake."

Outside, a squirrel scampers across a barren branch, nut in cheek. The forecast calls for snow tonight—the first one of the year. He recalls last year's first snow, and the first snow the year before that. It settles upon the ground like a fresh sheet of paper, untouched, unmarred, perfect. Snow has a funny way of eternalizing. In its crystalline splendor it's so easy to forget that an autumn existed before it, that a spring and a summer will follow.

"If," she hesitates, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, "if only things could go back to the way they were before.

Eren forces a smile. "Before what?"

This is what he wanted, isn't it? The erasure of Friday from the history books, to make it the stuff of dreams, the chance to start again. He should be overwhelmed with relief. Why isn't he overwhelmed with relief? This is what he wanted. And so when Mikasa smiles back, he tries his best to ignore the initial sensation of soaring, the strange twinge of pain that holds him down.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Referenced Kurt Vonnegut's _Slaughter House-5 _in this one. I _highly_ recommend it. It's one of Vonnegut's most well known works, and I also feel like it's a great introduction to his writing style and the rest of his novels. **

* * *

**8\. DINNER SANS THE AFTER-SHOW**

"Hey," Eren nods at her as they arrive at the laundry room at the same time; he balances his basket of clothes on his knee to open the door for her, he wobbles, and for a moment, nearly tumbles. She thanks him and gives him that soft smile of hers, and his lungs instinctively cling to the lingering scent of her newly washed hair as she brushes past him. Eren thinks of a summer's day: lemon slices resting atop ice in a sweltering glass of water, cracking a pomegranate open on his knee, crimson juice trickling down his hands.

"How's your break?" she asks, her back turned towards him as she empties her laundry into one of the machines. Eren unloads his into the washer next to hers.

"I made the mistake of collecting all of my freshmen class's essays the Friday before," he replies. This morning, he woke up on top of a stack of papers, red pen on his cheek. Why is it that sleep only finds him whenever he's trying to be productive? "And now I'm busting my ass trying to get them all graded in time without losing my mind." Reading ninety-six essays all with the claim 'Romeo and Juliet is/isn't an example of true love because…' really makes a guy begin to resent Shakespeare. Not his freshmen's fault, of course. Too complex, the English Department head replied when he'd denied Eren's proposal, leave satire to the sophomores.

Mikasa wrinkles her nose. "We've all been there," she says. "Get ready for winter break. We'll be doing the same thing all over."

"Does it ever end?"

She cocks her head to the side, gives him a teasing glance out of the corner of her eye. "Almost halfway to summer." Pouring in the detergent, she shuts the machine, but not before throwing in a translucent bag. In its contents, he spots the unmistakable shape of lingerie. Mostly neutrals, there's a heather gray and even a blush pink, none of them loud nor incredibly complex or ornate looking, all of them rather indicative of her personality. Eren's throat goes dry and he snaps his neck the other way.

"Are you all right?" Mikasa inquires, the sharpness of his movements catching her attention.

He nods his head perhaps a bit too vigorously, mumbling: "Never better."

They're back to normal, it seems. Of course, there's always a slip up here or there where he remembers what it was like to have her hands stretching out down his lower back, when she smiles at him and he can't help but remember the taste of her lips, but for the most part, things are back to the way they were before. Not too shabby for only being a week and a half later. He didn't think it was possible to go back after something like that—especially for two people like them: relatively solitary, socially inept.

Finished loading his machine, Eren turns to her, finding her giving him a quizzical look.

"Do you usually laundry your books?" she says, pointing to a copy of _Slaughterhouse-5_ at the bottom of his basket.

Eren laughs, running his hands through his bangs. "Only sometimes," he jokes. "Nah, Vonnegut just must've tried to sneak into the wash."

"Gosh, I can't remember the last time I read a book for leisure. I really should read more."

He watches her run her thumb over the spine, skim the back cover. "Take it. Go ahead and borrow it."

"I'm an incredibly slow reader. You wouldn't get it back for a while."

"I've got, like, three copies. Take it. I insist."

"Well," she says. "All right. Thank you."

Eren watches her leave. He thinks about that lingering smell of her freshly washed hair, the domesticity of watching her balance that laundry basket on her hip. He thinks about how silent it is in the moment she leaves even though the washer churns and rumbles behind him, how he's a fool, how these little slip ups where his heart beats a little faster without him wanting it to is purely residual, purely trivial. He thinks about the quiet aftermath of firebombed Dresden, of jabbering birds in trees, _Poo-too-weet?_ —unintelligible, nothing left to say. Lemon slices resting atop a sweltering glass of water. Her hips have a distinctive sway when she walks…

Eren pinches the bridge of his nose, exhales—as if to expel all of this nonsense from his lungs. _Poo-too-weet? _indeed.

**. . . . .**

Eren Yeager wakes from a nap later that day to fresh blanket of snow. A stack of graded papers his pillow, he checks for ink on his face in the front-view camera of his phone, wipes the smudged _word choice_ off of his cheek with his thumb and some spit. He was dreaming again. He dreamt of Dresden, and birds in trees, hospital rooms and wine stained sheets. There was a moment, in this reverie, where he lay stretched out across the sand, tide lapping at his skin before flooding him over, pulling him into the foam and spray, a moment of serenity and calm, ease and mindfulness. Funny, how in dreams, reality seems to cease, how in this state of limbo one can be born anew, lost in a life built between the waking moments. Eren contemplates going down again, but he catches the glint of ice in the windows, and goes to it.

There is something about freshly fallen snow that rejuvenates the human spirit. Untouched, unstained, pure unbroken white—it's as if the entire world's been reborn. As if everything's begun again. What a shame he has to shovel it away.

At the bottom of the stairs, he steps gingerly into the snow to make the treck to his car, and when he looks over his shoulder, he can't help but feel a pang of guilt at the footprints he leaves behind, their presence marring the once perfect surface, unseemly, intruding.

He finishes shoveling out his car rather quickly, and considers, for a nostalgic moment, piling the snow behind Mikasa's car, just like how he used to block her in with his own vehicle that first week. But he thinks better if it. He's caused enough trouble for her already. Instead, he digs her out, too.

"You didn't have to do that," she says later when he catches her on the landing.

"It was no problem, really. I don't mind. Besides," Eren says, "more time for you to read."

Mikasa smile. "It's a much faster read than I anticipated. If I read all tomorrow, I can drop it off later in the evening."

"Reading through dinner?" he asks. And yet, he really has no place to judge.

"Dinner?"

"Thanksgiving's tomorrow. Thursday."

"Oh, right," she says, and distracted by something off to the side, she turns away, and it's a moment before she speaks again. "I mean, I have a few distant relatives, but...I don't know. I lost both my parents when I was young, and…" she trails off, shakes her head. Her lips turn upwards into what's much too sad to be called a smile. "So it goes, I guess."

Something in the corner of his vision draws his attention away from her face. It seems remembering old memories tends to do that often—distract from the present, make it all so much harder to confront. "I lost mine, too," and he finds it vaguely strange, almost wrong, that he's connecting with someone, with _her_, over something so grim as mutual loss. And yet that's what people _do,_ don't they? Show others their missing pieces to feel less broken, less incomplete. "I'm having dinner with Armin and his grandfather tomorrow. You should come," he adds, barely thinking about the implications before he says it.

"No, I couldn't—I don't want to intrude."

"It'll just be the four of us, incredibly casual." He wonders if she can hear the urgency in his voice, if she judges him for it.

"Well," she twirls a strand of hair around her finger, "all right." And when she sighs, she leaves a phantom breath upon the cold air.

And Eren's never been good at math, but he can't help but wish, in that moment, that he could calculate the speed, the rate, at which her warm breath dissipates into the winter evening. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

She nods. "I'll see you tomorrow. And Eren?" she calls out, body halfway obscured by the door. "Thank you."

He grins back: "What are friends for?" And the words taste strange on his tongue. Not bad—but strange: the sort of strangeness that accompanies the exchanging of pleasantries with distant relatives at funerals. Not a lie, not incorrect, but also not completely true.

**. . . . .**

"You really didn't have to bring anything."

"No, Armin, I insist. My thanks for having me."

"Not at all. We're glad you could come."

Dinner is small, but hardy, and more than enough for the four of them. A browned rotisserie chicken lies at the head of the table before Mr. Arlert, storebought from the deli amidst the fight to the death for turkeys (Mr. Arlert retold the trip to the grocery rather animatedly, embellishing at every other opportunity, trip to the grocery quickly turned tall tale), it tastes that much better in the knowledge that it was obtained with ease in the face of very plausible struggle. And Mr. Arlert carves it just so: with pride rooted precision over his grandson's strategic and economic tact. In between the tray of biscuits, the stuffing, and corn, Eren's mashed potatoes lie in center, birthed from a box mix upon the realization that he'd have to skin all of the potatoes, and that skinning potatoes takes more than a half hour to forty-five minutes. He was at home when he made them, and he did, technically, make them, and so when Mikasa asks in the car, he assures her that yes, yes these are homemade, but despite his claims, Eren suspects they all know the truth anyways.

The real prize lies a bit off to the side. Though exceptionally plain in appearance, the sweet aroma of Mikasa's apple pie wafts out above the other scents, a bloom of red against a grayscale background. The pie is the siren of this odyssey, the rouge apple on the highest branch, sinful in the purest of ways. Each time the aroma sneaks into Eren's consciousness, the rest of the meal becomes an obstacle, a troublesome formality that they all must endure before tasting the real reward. Armin can't help but think of Christmas morning, sitting through breakfast, fingers tapping impatiently against his thigh, red and green wrapping paper glinting in the periphery of his vision. The pie dominates the Thanksgiving Dinner, dominates every conversation without explicit verbalization: eyes wander, voices trail off, only Mr. Arlert (and this trait must be the result of aging, the culmination of wisdom, for how else could it be achieved?) seems to manage graceful restraint.

"The last time you shared a Thanksgiving Dinner with us, Eren," he says as he pours him a glass of wine—he'd much prefer a beer, but taking into account what happened last time he drank, perhaps he's not qualified to make any sort of alcohol-related decision—"you still weren't of age—though, we all know that didn't stop you," he laughs.

"Thankfully, Eren's much more tactful when it comes to his liquor these days," Armin adds.

Eren nearly spits up his wine, and senses Mikasa go ridged beside him. Peering across the table, he tries to catch Armin's eye. Does he know? Surely, he can't. How could he possibly have found out? But Armin wears that ear to ear open smile that obscures his eyes, and so Eren is left to wonder, and wipe the perspiration from his unsure brow.

"This one was quite the troublemaker in high school," Mr. Arlert, leans over, raising his hand to hide his mouth as if trying to divulge some sort of secret to Mikasa without going through the trouble of lowering his voice.

"Was he really?" Mikasa asks in a tone of reserved curiosity. Eren feels his throat go dry, and he tries not to look her way.

"You forget, old man," Eren says, "that I still technically _am_ in high school."

"Well, let's hope that you refrain from puking in my bushes this time," Mr. Arlert quips, earning a laugh from the entire table. "Now, Eren, you must forgive me as I transgress against you once more—I promise this'll be the last of it tonight—but how long have you two..." his imprecise index finger floats back and forth between Eren and Mikasa. They break into instant objection.

"Oh, no, we're not—"

"We're just...yeah"

"Yes, exactly."

"Oh, my mistake," Mr. Arlert says, "I just assumed…"

"It's quite all right."

"Happens to the best of us, old man."

The conversation falls into a lull, dining room filled with the clink of silverware scraping against plates, a moment of silence that would've felt natural had it not been prefaced by such a topic of conversation.

"Shall we start dessert?" Armin asks after a time. Everyone zealously agrees.

The first bite is like seeing into the past. For the first time without the aide of old photo albums, he can picture his mother's face perfectly, every precious wrinkle, every speckle of color in her eyes, pick out the strands of silver amidst her dark brown hair. He hears her voice again, distinct and clear, carrying outside the kitchen window along with the scent of her own homemade apple pie.

"I hope it tastes all right," Mikasa says, sitting patiently, timid like an artist who stands beside their painting for review, "I haven't made this recipe in quite a while, so I'm afraid I'm out of practice."

"It's delicious, my dear."

"You'll have to let me steal the recipe."

Then she turns to him: "Is it to your liking?"

Eren swallows, finds himself trying to look anywhere but at her bright eyes. "It's good. Very good." Somehow, "very good" seems like a very wrong thing to say. Incredibly inadequate. Almost rude. Here he is, an English Teacher—and yet what a poor way with words!

Throughout the dinner, Eren and Mikasa both decline refills on wine. His excuse is that he has to drive home. She declines with only a polite no thank you. And Eren can't help but wonder if she too fears repeats and rash decisions, because he knows better than anyone that red wine is her drink.

"My dear," Mr. Arlert says as dinner comes to a close, "you look like you'd play a good game of chess."

"I should really help tidy up."

"Nonsense! Leave the cleaning to the boys. Now help me with my walker."

Eren and Armin clear the table in relative silence, dividing up the leftovers to be taken home.

"Separate containers, right?" Armin asks as he handles the chicken.

Eren's head snaps up, and he looks at Armin, incredulous. Even the suggestion—to even consider sharing containers, sharing leftovers—suggests a level of domesticity, intimacy. Unthinkable! It conjures images of toothbrushes set atop the same sink, two sizes of shoes before the door. Eren shudders, shakes the image from his head, and answers quickly, "Separate is fine," and then he deviates: "Dishes next? You wash, I'll dry and stack?"

Armin smiles. "Just like old times."

The practice started as a matter of efficiency: Eren was always taller, and better built for stacking the mugs up on the highest shelf; Armin's coordination was always better, a trait necessary to avoid dropping soapy plates in the midst of a rinse. It's not so much a need these days—Armin's grown to a height that manages the dimensions of the kitchen just fine—but it would feel wrong any other way. This is how they fit into the space of the kitchen, Armin soaping and rinsing, scraping food into the disposal, and Eren drying and stacking, mountains of plates and bowls sandwiched between his arms and his chin, tiptoes a balancing act that spans the entire kitchen as he carries them from cupboard to cupboard, cabinet to cabinet.

As he puts things back into place, Eren notices they've kept his organization. They still stack the cups in threes, fit the forks together head to tail, and it's a comforting sight. Like he never really left. Like he's been here all along. But he supposes it's the same as when he and his mother left his father's seat at the dinner table empty long after he left, as if just in case he'd walk through the door at six o'clock, set his briefcase down by the leg of the table, and loosen his tie, sighing as he relayed another story from work. Just another gesture to the dead, the gone, the specters no longer haunting the reposed bones. It's true, after years of absence, after the occasional call and card, he came back to this old house. And somehow, that's not the same as a return.

He wakes from his trance upon the realization that he's been running the same glass between a towel, and that Armin hasn't passed him a new dish in ages.

"Hey man, you all right? Armin? Hey, Armin?" Leaning over to look him in the eye, Eren shuts off the running water.

"Sorry," Armin apologizes.

"Where were you, buddy?"

Armin stares out past the open window, enters that place once more before turning to Eren. And the look in his eyes is something Eren's never seen before. It's vulnerable, free of deceptive smiles that reach ear to ear, it's all of Armin, armor at his feet, and it unsettles him, this look.

"Was it me?" Armin asks, his voice almost a whisper. "I mean, I get that you went away for college, and then to find work, but you never called, you never wrote. You never came back after you left for college, I haven't seen you since before college! And you're back now, and things still don't feel the same," his brow knits together, voice trembling and that vulnerability turns frantic, desperate. "Was it me? Was it something I said? Something I did? Did I drive you away?"

He doesn't think before he does it. But he feels it in his chest, instinctual like the way the body flinches to avoid a flying object, the way flowers turn to face the sun. Eren pulls Armin into his chest. He realizes that they've never hugged before: not when he left, not when he came back, not until now. And he didn't know that his absence could leave such tremors, that he had the capacity to be missed. And had he known that others bandaged fresh wounds in his dull knife departure perhaps he would've been less complacent, would've left a knot at the end of his rope, something for them to grab on to.

"I'm sorry," Eren says, his arms wrapping tighter around Armin's shoulders, "I didn't mean to make you feel that way. This isn't your fault. None of this is your fault." He pulls back to look Armin in his swimming blue eyes. "I should've tried harder."

Perhaps he'd been so eager to leave the past behind, so eager to free himself from the rotting wood of faint echoes and shadows, wilted roses and staring out of hospice windows, that he'd abandoned the other living, erred in counting the living and counting the dead, cut away too much.

"I'm going to try harder," he says. The two boys share a grin, and Armin wipes his eyes. And if asked, either boy would shrug their shoulders and say that it was incredibly natural, that they didn't give the aftermath all that much thought, for they fall back into how they began so easily: Armin washing, and Eren drying, plate, by plate, by plate.

**. . . . .**

On the ride home, the radio plays quiet, a white noise melody beneath his thoughts, swimming, rushing, in his head. That'd been the goal all those years ago—escape, getting as far away as possible from where it all began—he'd swore he'd leave and never come back, forge himself entirely anew. But here he is, back where he started, trying to anchor his being into the old foundation he'd abandoned long ago. It's like finding yourself in the midst of a dream, trying to remember where it all began.

In the passengers seat, the leftovers piled high on her lap Mikasa's head droops against the side of the car. As they whisk down the highway, they pass under intermittent glow of the streetlights, each one bringing to her face a moment of flash bulb glow, washes over her delicately closed eyes, her slightly parted lips. And if he could but take his gaze from the road, allow more than his periphery to trace the outline of her face, to count each eyelash, finally think of the perfect word to describe the soft rise and fall of her collarbone with each breath, he knows, deep down he knows, that if he allowed himself that indulgence, he'd never be able to look away. And so Eren tightens his grip on the steering wheel, and with a hard exhale, forces himself to focus on the road stretched out before him.


	9. Chapter 9

**9\. APPLE PIES, IV LINES, &amp; INTERVENING FATE pt. I **

"You gonna eat those carrots?" a familiar voice says, and Sasha takes the seat across from her. Mikasa smiles, glad for the company, and passes over her Tupperware of baby carrots. "Eren and Armin proctoring this period?" Sasha asks in between bites.

"Yeah," Mikasa replies. "And I've got two more after this period."

Sasha winces. "See, that's the problem with teaching those academic subjects," she articulates each word with the bitten half of a carrot, "you've got all those test periods to proctor, and then _after _that, you have, like, a kajabillion finals to grade. Me? I've got my restaurant management kids preparing me a multiple course meal—thank god for blocked schedules—and then I get to go home and enjoy my winter break."

"I guess you're right. Winter break's never as relaxing as it could be with all the grading."

"See? The trick is to go into teaching the culinary courses, and then only the higher level classes to avoid food poisoning." Looking down at the empty Tupperware, Sasha's gaze wanders: "Need help with those snap peas, or what?"

"Be my guest."

"You know, Mikasa, it's a pity we didn't become friends sooner."

**. . . . .**

As they trudge through a couple inches of snow from the car, a surge of relief hits her: thank god the semester is over. Mikasa hadn't realized it while she was in the midst of it, but what an absolutely exhausting first half of the year. She looks ahead to the back of Eren's neck, messy brown hair sticking out over the collar of his coat, and realizes with a strange feeling how this year would've been destined to be like any other year had he not come flying into her all those months ago.

Somehow, he feels her gaze on the back of his neck, and it's always baffled her: the degree of concrete presence in which the metaphysical actually resides. He turns to face her, and Mikasa forces herself not to look away from those burning green eyes.

"Wanna come by my place and get some grading done?" Eren asks with the jerk of his thumb over his shoulder.

Mikasa's heart beats faster. She draws circles in the snow with her shoe. She hasn't been back to his place ever since that last night, and there's still something about even the sight of his door that makes her blush with shame and something else she doesn't dare to name. He sees her hesitate, senses he's crossed some invisible line.

"Or, you know, we could go somewhere else, or something," he stammers.

"We can just go to my place," Mikasa says, and she brushes past him to lead the way. She'd suggested her place for the obvious reason that it isn't his place, that it shares no attachment to those midnight hours, but as she unlocks her front door, she just barely feels the ghost of his breath brush past her ear, evanescent warmth. She hears, in his breath, the way his lips are parted, the way his tongue sweeps over the chapped skin, hears how his chest rises and falls with each breath beneath the fabric of his shirt. Mikasa inhales deeply, eyes closed beneath furrowed brow, and pushes the door open, steps into the apartment and feels like a swimmer, puncturing the surface of the water to come up for air, and gasping.

She throws her keys in the bowl, throws off her shoes, making as much noise as possible in order to focus on the clink, the thump, the thud, and purge her senses. Something brushes against her leg, and it's Shina, bursting out from wherever she was hiding to greet them. Eren bends down to scratch her behind the ears, and she voices her approval with her deep purr.

"No tree?" he comments. "No menorah?"

"I don't really celebrate anything this time of year."

"Ah, then are you're a devout atheist like myself?"

"Undecided, I guess?" Mikasa shrugs. "I don't know, I've never really been one for celebrating holidays." The last Christmas she celebrated—the last Christmas she _really_ celebrated, for she doesn't exactly count those years spent passed around between distant, senile aunts and cousins three times removed—had been with her parents. She'd had a stocking hand embroidered by her mother, a goose with a book of carols tucked beneath her wing, and a red scarf wrapped round her neck as she and another trudged through the snow in song. That Christmas, she'd received red envelopes from her mother's relatives living in a country far away, and a little stuffed rabbit. The three of them made her rabbit a small house from the boxes, a nice cottage with candy cane wallpaper. And maybe she's going about this whole spirituality thing wrong, because when she clasps her hands together and bows her head, it's never to an omnipotent god, never a plea for the grace of her soul, but a call out into the void, a hope that something of her father and her mother remains in this world to hear her. It's less so praying than it is conversing with the dead. And so when people ask her these sorts of questions, she never knows how to reply. "I take it you don't celebrate either, then?"

"Actually, I'm spending the holiday with Armin and his grandfather. I've been meaning to ask you if you wanted to come."

"Sure," Mikasa replies, and she hopes she doesn't come off as eager as she feels, "if you're sure it's all right." She had actually rather enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner. Seeing the house where Armin and Eren grew up, meeting Armin's grandfather—it explained a lot. During their chess game, bright blue eyes roving over the board, she saw so much of Armin, discovered the origins of his meticulous nature, found the fire stoking his curiosity and intelligence. And then Eren. She'd spotted a couple photographs displayed around the house—the one of him and Armin on their high school graduation set atop the mantel grinning ear to ear in their caps and gowns; Armin and Eren as young boys sitting on a stoop, barefoot, hands holding enormous rinds of watermelon, their faces stained with the juice; and then one of solely Eren hung on the fridge, perhaps taken by Armin, or his grandfather, or even Eren himself for a school photography class, he stares downcast and to the side, hair thick, and dark, and messy, and a gage settled in only one ear, all dramatically captured in black and white.

She attributed it in part to adolescent angst, and thinking back to the photograph, she reminisces over her own years of teenage melodrama with amusement and a twinge of embarrassment. But so accustomed to his idiotic grin and wise cracks, that photograph, with his furrowed brow and troubled gaze, reminds her of what she so often forgets: that he has the capacity to feel and experience sorrow and pain just the same as her, that he too has skeletons locked away in his closet, bones creaking and rattling in his mind no matter how far he strays from home. Mikasa thinks of that night they met on the landing back in autumn, the both of them troubled by sleep, and she can't help but wonder what sort of nightmares plague his waking moments.

During Thanksgiving, she'd briefly perused their bookshelf, finding familiar names like _The Siddhartha, _Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Homer, and Dante—those had surely belonged to Armin—and then she'd come across the _Stranger_, Shelley's _Frankenstein_, an incredibly tattered looking copy of _The Catcher in the Rye_. She'd let slip a smile at the thought of a young Eren in the blinking light of a convenience store at dusk, cigarette between his teeth, muttering a bitter _phony_ under his breath.

Mikasa looks up from her papers across the table at Eren. Multiple essays sprawled out before him in contrast to her own neat stacks, his fingers tangled in his hair where he rests his head and red pen between his lips. And all those years ago, could Holden Caulfield have ever anticipated this? How strange, to remember that they'd both been so young once.

**. . . . .**

She's actually been counting down the days. The twenty fifth draws nearer and nearer, and she almost feels like a little girl again, fixated on the number twenty-five in relation to today's date. Yesterday as she'd brushed her teeth, she did twenty-three strokes down, and twenty three times up on the front, the side, the other side, and the back. She swished the mouthwash around twenty-three before spitting and scratched Shina behind the ears twenty three times each. She repeats the process again today, this time in counts of twenty-four.

Mikasa puts together her apple pie—she'll have to bring some by for Sasha one of these days—and the radio turned up to a decent level, catches herself humming along as she sets the filling. What a peculiarity. When had been the last time she'd caught herself humming?

She had forgotten herself for a moment to the pie and to the radio. Loud music had never enticed her, for she had always been the one to set her iPod to the lowest setting, the one who cringed in pain for the student who announced their presence with their music blasting through their ear buds long before they ever rounded the corner, but now she knows the ease that comes in losing the self, best achieved when sound resonates louder than inhibiting thoughts. Glancing over her shoulder to the shared wall, she almost laughs at the irony.

She could invite him over—knock on his door with the promise of pie (she does have enough for two after all, looks like Sasha will be getting her share when school starts up again) and she almost does; she's got on her coat, one of her shoes, and is in the midst of slipping on the other one when she stops short. It can't really be as simple as walking ten paces and knocking on his door, can it? The trek next door suddenly seems much more difficult and complex. It's too weird, out of the blue, and besides, they'll see each other tomorrow. Asking him over would be excessive. And she's never been one for excess. No, she'll just wait to see him tomorrow. Mikasa abandons her struggle with her shoes and, after sticking her coat back in the closet, returns to her apple pie.

That night, Mikasa lies awake in bed, though this time in anticipation. Clocks, however, always make a point of moving slowly when under scrutiny by the human eye, and so the hands remain frozen at eleven twenty four. And she feels like a child again. All those years ago, she used to stay up to try and hear the footsteps of reindeer on the roof, but tonight, on Christmas Eve, instead she listens for the sound of his music through the wall. This time, just like every other time, Mikasa falls asleep to silence.

**. . . . .**

The next morning, Mikasa wakes, and opens her eyes from an already fading dream, the fantasy evaporating in the morning light—something about two geese, a sky of red rain, thundering footsteps, and a pounding heart just beneath her ear. As she stares at the ceiling, the afterimages leave a strange feeling in her chest. It's as if she's experienced a lifetime of loss and sorrow, fear and love, all in a single night. Sitting up in bed, Mikasa yawns, and stretching, pays the peculiar feeling no heed. It was only a dream, after all.

Realizing what day it is, she's overwhelmed with childish giddiness, and impatience—an emotion rather unfamiliar to her—sets a restlessness in her limbs as she calculates how much time is left until they leave for dinner, and she hops out of bed to get ready for the day.

Later, after a shower, she stands clad only in towels, one wrapped around her torso, and the other over her damp hair, before her bed, contemplating outfit—not that there's much to contemplate anyways. It occurs to her, with her wardrobe spread out before her upon her bed, how little color she has: her clothes are composed of blacks, neutrals, every other shade of gray, and blue, a rare, conserved amount of pattern mixed in between. Had she enjoyed shopping more, had she been a bit more daring on the rare occasions that she did, perhaps she'd have something remotely fitting for tonight's occasion. But, Mikasa supposes, she's never been all that daring to begin with, never really considered herself a colorful person—how did she manage to do this so mindlessly last Thanksgiving? After trying on a countless number of different ensembles, she finally settles on a safe navy dress with gray stockings—the first outfit she'd tried on. In the bathroom's full-length mirror, she turns, this way and that, checking out every angle for error—yet another new behavior this day has brought—before one resigned affirmation settles in her mind. _This will have to do_.

And then she hesitates, looks warily at her makeup case. Mikasa starts with the familiar: concealer over dark circles and red spots, and a thin line of eyeliner just barely there. Then daringly, she grabs the tube of mascara, and with an untrained hand, applies two coats to her lashes, so careful not to smudge any on the skin around her eyes that her hand trembles. If only she had practiced more.

Faced with only her reflection for so long, she unwittingly begins to contemplate her own attractiveness—the downward spiral that begins with wishing she were more and leading to thorough self-loathing. She's just too plain, everything about her much too drab—her hair, her clothes. Even her eyes are a flat black.

But then comes a knock comes at the door. Thankful for the interruption, Mikasa bounds out of the bedroom. He's a tad early—an hour or two early, actually—but she doesn't mind. She doesn't mind at all.

"Just a minute!" she calls out at the second series of knocks, and she rushes to grab the pie, and slips into her shoes and coat as quickly as she can. "Hi there!" Mikasa says as she throws open the door. And under any other circumstance, she'd feel quite self-conscious about the enthusiasm in her voice, but today, she doesn't care. "Happy Christmas!"

Eren stands before her in the doorway, hands in his coat pockets, his hair less of a mess than usual. But even though he looks straight after, his eyes still stare far off beyond her. And Mikasa doesn't recognize the expression in his face, lips pressed together tight, slightly downturned, brows knit only slightly together and weigh down above his eyes. It reminds her of rained out picnics and funeral home flowers, abandoned robin's eggs and eulogy speakers. It reminds her of the face of the officer who found her beneath her parents' bed that day. Without meaning to, she takes a step backwards. "What's wrong?" she ventures, all enthusiasm replaced with wariness.

"Hey, look, something's happened…"

* * *

**A/N: Okay, but angsty, adolescent Eren **_**totally**_** loved **_**The Catcher and the Rye**_**. I personally don't care for the book myself, but I find it so amusing that it's such a polarizing piece of literature. I've yet to talk to anyone who's been neutral on it. **


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: shout out to **_**Spartan Ninja**_** for their very astute prediction :)**

**Also, I personally **_**love**_** the book **_**The Phantom Tollbooth. **_**And if you appreciated **_**Tollbooth,**_** a good recommendation is Salman Rushdie's **_**Haroun &amp; the Sea of Stories. **_**He wrote it for his son, and it's a wonderful bildungsroman that explores one of my favorite themes in literature ever: the importance of storytelling.**

**And if anyone's interested, I made an 8tracks for this fic under the same name. I'll link it in my bio for those that are interested. **

* * *

**10\. APPLE PIES, IV LINES, &amp; INTERVENING FATE pt. II**

_"What's wrong?" Mikasa ventures, all enthusiasm replaced with wariness. _

_"Hey, look, something's happened…"_

. . . . .

She's never liked hospitals, though, who really ever does? Whoever is in charge of the decor had decided to line the halls in garland and wreaths, placed small, imitation trees in each of the foyers as if to disguise the sterile walls and chorus of coughs, IV crosses and gift-wrapped bandages. She'd spent such a long time this morning agonizing over her choice of wear and makeup only to find herself and Eren overdressed among nurses' scrubs and doctors' coats, patients' robes and the day-old, rumpled outfits of their families who devotedly lie sleeping in chairs beside them.

_They think it's his liver_, Eren had said when he came over to apologize for the inconvenience and a ruined dinner. She assured him that it was nothing to apologize for, and she invited him inside for a cup of tea, but he'd shaken his head, mentioned how he had to go to the hospital. It looked like he was about to cry. _Let me at least drive you,_ she'd said. _Please. _

But as she follows Eren through the hospital corridors, she begins to regret accompanying him. What is she doing? She doesn't belong here. It's not her father figure hooked up to an IV, not her family on the line—and perhaps that's really why she'd been so excited for this day, because deep down something inside of her dreamed that today meant that she'd be a part of their little family. But she has no family. And she's not a part of this one. No matter how many dinners she attends, she will never find herself among the mantelpiece photographs, never have a history with that house the same way Armin and Eren do. She is a stranger, and intruder, the little match girl looking in, and it's high time she remembered that.

She watches as Eren rushes into the hospital room to embrace Armin, the words they exchange incoherent from her spot in the doorframe. The two boys talk in low voices at Mr. Arlert's bedside as he sleeps, heart rate measured by steady beeps and oxygen tank whirring, they don't notice as she sets her pie on one of the bedside tables, don't notice as she slips out the door. And it's better this way, better that she doesn't disrupt their lives, that she is as viscous as water. They will face no trouble moving past her, through her, by her, on their way down river.

She walks the ward until she arrives at an unoccupied foyer before an elevator, and here she falls into a chair, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers. What an incredibly self-centered person she's being. How dare she even begin to contemplate her own trivial sorrow when Mr. Arlert lies in questionable condition in the next room. Her stomach churns, sick on her own selfishness, and god, she just can't stand herself. How useless she is sitting here, wallowing in self-pity.

There aren't any windows in this foyer, and without that glimpse of the outside, fluorescent lit halls and whirring heaters, it's easy to forget that it's the middle of the day, that there's snow on the ground. Hospitals have a way with destroying one's passage of time, of trapping them within this place, unable to fathom the happenings of the outside world. And maybe her body's been a hospital all this time—but none of the bustling of the emergency room, none of the urgency in intensive care, just empty halls and silent corridors, vacant foyers before unused elevators.

She wanders back to the room, somehow, to find Armin reading through a stack of papers. He stands to meet her.

"How is everything?" she asks as she embraces him. She's never been one for hugs, but it feels like the right thing to do.

"Well, we're stable now, so that's good," Armin replies. "The doctor will probably be back tomorrow with more details and such, but it looks like we'll be camping out over here for the next few days. And it looks like that one's finally tired himself out." He gestures to Eren, asleep in a chair.

"Look, Armin, I"m sorry I didn't stay earlier, I just thought—"  
"Don't worry about it. It means a lot that you even came—and with your pie, too! What a perfect time to eat it, now that you're here."

They obtain paper plates and plastic forks, conversing quietly so as not to wake the other two. The day's glow slowly waning into dusk, they talk about school, of course, and Mikasa listens to Armin compare his freshmen World History class to his mostly senior AP European History class, empathizing with her own freshmen biology kids and AP seniors. The freshmen, like always, do rather well, outperforming their upperclassmen counterparts who are already succumbing to the plague of senioritis. Mikasa lets Armin steer the conversation, content to be free of the responsibility of determining what is and isn't appropriate hospital room discussion. The classroom is so distant from this place: so lively, so different. It is the perfect distraction, the perfect topic of conversation, and through it all Armin laughs and smiles. Armin always laughs and smiles.

But even so, Mikasa can still see the bags beneath his eyes, spot the weariness hanging off of his shoulders. And thank god for her pie, for each time they reach a lull in the discussion that they are ill equipped to handle, they chew slower, more carefully, choose each spoonful with more thought, and pretend the discomfort doesn't exist. For this same reason, they order a hefty dinner and try, unsuccessfully, to rouse Eren from his slumber. The nurse who wheels in the food gives a cheery "Merry Christmas!" and Mikasa forces herself to say it back. She'd almost forgotten what day it was today, but that's the stone that tips it.

"That's probably the worst thing about holidays—how they come every year," Armin says very quietly, "Christmas will still come next year, and the year after that," he glances over to the hospital bed, eyes lingering on the IV line protruding from his grandfather's wrist, the oxygen tube at his nose, and something tells Mikasa that Armin is much too accustomed to hospital rooms. He inhales a shaky breath. "It'll be so different without…" And that's when the tears begin to fall.

They're silent tears, tears that that roll down his cheeks with quiet dignity, blue eyes swimming in their rush. "I'm sorry," he hiccups.

And the last time Mikasa saw someone cry was last year during second semester finals—a student. She'd advised her to get a drink, and stop by Student Services, and that her test would be in the Science Office to complete later when she felt better. But this is somehow ten times worse, and she feels ten times more helpless. What should she do? What should she say? Has she always been this useless?

The monitor counts out heartbeats, and the oxygen tank sighs with each inhale and exhale, Mikasa traces circles on the surface of the table. Hesitant, she raises her hand, ventures across the table to place it softly on Armin's. Even amidst the sounds, she can still pick out Eren's breathing, the soft and measured pattern of sleep. "Armin," she says, and his hand feels so chilled beneath her own, "we're here for you."

Outside, almost unnoticeable in the evening sky, snow begins to fall.

**. . . . .**

It snows heavily over the next few days, listless flurries outside her window that fall like a sigh from parted lips. From the kitchen window, mug of coffee in her hand gone cold, she tries to count each one, the same way she used to lie on her back under a summer sky and count the stars. But night sky stars have a sort of permanence that snowflakes lack, falling, falling, disappearing into white noise, melting on contact of the tip of a tongue, dissipating on warm skin, while the cosmos burn on and on, even billions of years after dying star breathes its last. From the kitchen window, mug of coffee in her hand gone cold, Mikasa tries to count each snowflake. She loses count, time after time, after time.

She hasn't seen him around much these past few days, his parking spot vacated every time she finds herself checking. He makes not a sound—nothing through the walls, not the slam of his door as he comes and goes—and a part of her wonders if he really did leave for good. She reads the book he let her borrow because it makes her feel less alone, but only a few pages at a time. She can never concentrate for long. And late at night, she leans her head against the wall, like putting a seashell to her ear, waiting for the sea of muffled records playing on the other side, anything, anything but empty silence.

_Everything all right? _She ventures a text one day, fingers shaking on the keyboard of her flip phone, and then she hides it within the covers of her bed so as not to be taunted by an empty inbox. And after grading multiple tests, and chores—taken care of with focused care so as to forget about those three little words sent—she shoos Shina away to recover her phone, opening it to a single text message: _better. bringing him home b4 weekend. _She considers, for a long moment, replying—something short, like, _glad to hear it_ or _send Armin my regards_—but twenty six letters and punctuation, their limitless combinations and compositions, quickly overwhelm her, and she leaves the text box blank.

The next few days pass slowly, yet all at once. And aside from grading and chores, these past few days, without the obligation of school, she finds herself restless. What did she ever do in her free time anyways? Picking apart her mind for answers, she keeps drawing blanks. Was she really once content with a life like this? Idle and lazy? Eventually, sick of her own company, she grabs her car keys, and incense and lighter, before heading out the door.

**. . . . .**

The poinsettias from the last time she visited early that week still sit exactly where she left them, and crouching down, she brushes the snow off the leaves and petals before lighting two sticks of incense. Mikasa presses her palms together and bows her head.

She thinks of the winters spent out in the snow, being pulled through white fields on a sled, her parents' tall figures just ahead of her, burning her tongue on hot chocolate, and building forts in the yard.

Standing before her parents, snow falling around her, the memories seem so much more vivid, so much closer than they usually are—she feels as if these images of the past replay themselves. She catches the specters of her mother, her father, her younger self, tumbling through the snow in her periphery, hears their laughter on the wind._ I'm sorry we can't have this again,_ she watches her family erect a fort between the tombstones, larger hands guiding small mittens to form a snowball, _At least, not for a long while. _

But today's not all remembrances, not all solemn prayers of regrets and sorrows. She shares her relief about Mr. Arlert returning home today, the irregularity of her restlessness—still strange, but somehow welcomed. Around Armin and Eren—even just the thought of being with them—she finds herself smiling and laughing more. She didn't think someone with a past like hers could ever reach that point. With a content sigh, she turns her smiling face heavenwards, letting the snowflakes hit her face like soft kisses and thinks of her mother and father tucking her in at night: a kiss on the forehead, and a kiss on the nose. Mikasa opens her mouth and catches one, and then another, on the tip of her tongue. Her laugh echoes through the snowfield. She relishes the crunch of the snow beneath her feet as she walks back to the car. And for the first time on the way home, Mikasa turns the radio up. She hums along.

**. . . . .**

Arriving home, she pulls in next to Eren's passat, and she never thought a car could be a sight for sore eyes. Her body perks up in excitement, and as she makes the walk to her apartment, she pauses before his door. It'd be so easy to knock on his door or even shoot him a quick text, and considering he always does the same to her, isn't it, by some unspoken rule, her turn? They're friends, and this would be the friendly thing to do. But he's surely tired after spending the past week at the hospital, and if he's not resting, than he's surely eating dinner. And then what she even say? What would she even suggest they do? Besides, she still has her apprehensions about that door of his. An impatient growl from her stomach interrupts her internalized disagreement, and so Mikasa relents, heading inside her own apartment to prepare herself a meal.

She pours a scrambled egg over rice frying in a pan, relieved to find she still has some ham left in the fridge, and Shina comes to nuzzle her ankles as she eats alone in the kitchen. That idleness, that restlessness, is back again. She's already cleaned her apartment from ceiling to floor, graded all the finals and entered them, adjusting the borderline grades where they needed adjusting, and reviewed and reviewed her lesson plans over and over. There's not much left to do—nothing actually. And in a strange way, she's grateful that school starts back up in another day.

Her eyes wander to the last book Eren let her borrow sitting on the counter: _The Phantom Tollbooth_. He gave it to her before the start of break, and it's an easy enough read—he prefaced it by letting her know that it was, in fact, a children's adventure story, but a good read nonetheless for any age. She's been only thirty or so pages in for the past few days, and yet Mikasa can't bring herself to finish it, can't decide if her impartiality towards the story is a fault of her own, or of the text (probably the former, considering she's only really begun to read books again fairly recently). Perhaps tonight's the night to finally close the back cover.

After all, he did recommend it to her—and she appreciates the books solely for that reason. For each book he gives her is a mosaic chard of his past and present, and as she reads she searches for these pieces of him behind every word and phrase, tries to find where he's hidden himself within the pages. Sometimes in moments of confidence, she pretends she knows him well enough to explicate his cognition from the passages. _This is where he fell in love. This is where he realized he'd been grinning. He read this line, here, over and over, whispered it beneath his breath, traced it into his skin. _

And so Mikasa Ackerman picks up _The_ _Phantom Tollbooth_, sits down on the couch with Shina curled up on her lap, and commits. Stopping only for the occasional cup of tea (and, admittedly, a three hour long detour that involves a nap, a snack, Shina and a piece of ribbon) Mikasa follows Milo through Dictionopolis, Digitopolis, the Mountains of Ignorance, flies with Tock, and takes part in the celebration for Rhyme and Reason. And before she knows it, it's nearly eleven thirty when she closes the book.

Finishing a read always leaves her with a strange myriad of feelings: satisfaction that she's completed it, forlornness that it's all over, disorientation like she's woken from a dream, and this time, guilt that she didn't love it perhaps as much as he did. Mikasa leans her head back, closing her eyes with a sigh. Faintly, she hears music.

She drums her fingers on the cover. It wouldn't be absurd to just stop by and return the book—especially since she's had it for so long. Certainly, its return is overdue. It'll just be a quick exchange in his doorway. Maybe a short conversation about how Mr. Arlert is fairing, or about school. So before she can talk herself out of it, Mikasa grabs her coat and the book and slips out the door.

The winter night air is brisk on her skin, and her clouds of breath come out rapid and uneven—surely because of the cold. And it's the cold that makes her hand freeze before she raps at the door three times.

"Come in," Eren's voice calls out.

The door's unlocked, and she tries not to remember the last time she walked through this threshold, tries not to remember the feeling of the wall against his back, tries not to think about his hot fingers in all this cold as she closes the door behind her.

"Hello?" she says. She watches as her breath ghosts out before her; and then he notices how her teeth chatter more violently, how her limbs shake more fiercely than they did outside. How the hell is it colder in here than it is out there?!

"One sec," Eren replies. But what enters the room a moment later bears no resemblance to Eren Yeager. It's thick pelt looks comprised of multiple winter coats, and carries a pair of purple mittens for paws; green eyes peek out from between a hood, and a scarf that obscures half its face. "Oh," the creature says, taking the book from Mikasa's hands. "How'd you like it?"

"What happened?!"

Eren moves his scarf out of the way, revealing a frostbitten nose. "The heater's shot. Hanes said he'll get it fixed within the week."

"Where are you staying until it gets fixed?"

"A little cold never killed anybody," he laughs at his own joke.

And it must be that his impulsiveness has rubbed off on her over the course of the semester, because the thought exits her mouth the very moment it enters her brain: "Come stay with me." From another room his record player croons, and they stare at one another like mirror images, both their mouths agape. Suddenly they're much too close, and the room is much too hot. "Just for this next week while your heater gets fixed," Mikasa stutters, and she tries to look anywhere but at him, but every part of this damn apartment screams reminders about the night they fucked.

"You'd do that?" Eren asks, wide-eyed.

She shifts her weight from foot to foot, "What are friends for?"

It doesn't take him long to gather all of his things-just some clothes and toiletries. He _is_ only staying for a week, at most. Eren declines Mikasa's offers to help, to her relief—though she offered out of politeness, the thought of going through his things seems far too intimate an act—and so she sits on his couch with his next book recommendation in hand, listening as he updates her on Armin and his grandfather, who went home much, much better. Mikasa doesn't think about the last time she sat on this couch.

She sets him up in her living room. "Sorry about the cat hair," she says as she brings him some extra blankets and pillows. He's been in her apartment before, but he looks so odd sitting on her cushions so late at night. Not out of place, necessarily, just odd.

"I don't mind," Eren replies, stretching out. "Thanks again for doing this."

Mikasa nods her head, and then chews on her bottom lip. She wonders what it is she's supposed to do now. Not fifteen minutes in her apartment, and he's already interrupted her routine. She's brought this entirely on herself. "Well," Mikasa says, "I think I'm headed off to bed."

Eren yawns. "Sounds like a good idea. What time is it anyways?"

"Twelve-eleven."

Eren nods his head in acknowledgement. "Well, goodnight," he says as he turns out the light.

"Goodnight," Mikasa replies, acutely aware of how short the walk is from the couch to her bedroom door. Six paces in all.

"Oh, and Mikasa?" she turns to face him. "Happy New Year."


	11. Chapter 11

**Warnings: jumping straight into it. sexual content.**

**A/N: Once again, another shout out to Spartan Ninja-good god, Spartan Ninja! You gotta stop reading my outlines!**

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**11\. VIVA LA OXFORD COMMA**

Hot water pounds against his shoulders as Eren leans forward to rest a forearm against the shower wall. Eyes clenched shut tight, his breathing comes labored, uneven, and thankfully muffled by the patter of water upon the tile floor as his free hand makes long strokes up and down his length. He vaguely registers a twinge of guilt, because this is so wrong. This isn't his shower, (likewise, isn't his apartment) and this is surely incredibly discourteous guest behavior, but it's been two and a half weeks, and fuck, two and a half weeks is a long way to go without jerking one off, all things considering. Of all the things involved with staying with someone, he hadn't thought _this _part of his life to be so infringed upon, had completely forgotten about it until about the third day in.

During this entire process, he tries so hard to keep his mind absolutely blank, to keep this act completely neutral, done out of necessity rather than pleasure or fantasy, but that's another thing this whole living arrangement has screwed up, because _fuck it_, he'll admit it, she's attractive as hell: her rose petal lips, her night sky eyes, her lithe body taut and soft, shaped just for dreaming hands and wanting lips. And a thought like this definitely secures a place for him in the inferno as the worst houseguest ever, because try as he might, the speed of his hand pumping up and down his length gets faster, faster, as he thinks back to that night—her nails carving into his back as he slid in and out of her—as he thinks back to yesterday night when, through the crack of her bedroom door, left open by mistake, he caught the briefest glimpse of her pulling her shirt over her head, preparing for bed; his throat had gone dry with the thought of sinking into her once more.

Stifling a groan, Eren comes into the palm of his hand. Hot water continues to beat down upon him. His shoulders slump, his heart rate and breathing level, and he cringes in disgust as he rinses himself off, letting all his shame wash down the drain.

A couple of minutes after, he steps out of the shower, drying himself off with a towel, and shaking the water from his hair into the bathroom sink. Looking in the mirror, his wet hair falls over his eyes and threatens to creep over the tip of his nose. He needs a haircut, and his reflection also reminds himself of that of a stray dog. How fitting.

He turns to grab his clothes atop the toilet seat where he left them—or at least, where he _thought_ he'd left them. Eren swears. Slinging the towel around his waist, he takes a deep breath, and braves the trip outside.

He makes a beeline to his clothes situated on the couch, ignoring Mikasa, who has the courtesy to do the same as she sips her coffee in the kitchen. The thought of her seeing him clad only in a towel starts an irksome stirring in his belly—ridiculous, considering he _just_ took care of this same problem not five minutes ago. What a way to start the Tuesday.

They're on their way to school fifteen minutes later—on time, today—Mikasa at the wheel, while Eren does his best to organize a mess of papers.

"You really should be letting me drive everyday," he says, an essay between his teeth. "Come on."

Mikasa shakes her head. "I take Mondays and Tuesdays, and you take Wednesdays and Thursdays."

"That was before I started staying with you—oh, by the way, I talked to Hannes. He's still intent on fixing whatever's wrong with my heater by himself, but I should be able to live back at my place next week, I think. What accent is that, anyways?"

"I want to say German?"

"But yeah, I'll be out of your hair next week. I swear."

"Eren, I really don't mind," she says as they pull into the teacher's lot. They park beside Annie, who gives them a curt nod. Eren watches her eyes flicker from him to Mikasa, and then back again.

"I still feel bad," he replies.

**. . . . .**

Two and a half weeks back at school, and he's still not quite back into the swing of things. He blames the living arrangements, quite frankly. Sleeping someplace new always takes a while to adjust to, be it a mattress, a car, or a couch; and lying restless in bed, staring up at the ceiling always felt horribly unproductive, but somewhere in those eternal hours, he found that books made good pillows and great companions for sleepless nights. Though as of recently, he rereads Ian McEwan's _Atonement_—still quite unsure what in that book he might be looking for this time around—back during those first few months living with the Arlerts, _The Catcher in the Rye_ and _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_ fueled his anger, and _Lord of the Flies _and _Fahrenheit 451 _directed his fire at the ambiguous society and away from the hurt, the elephant in the room, his father's shadow in the corner. He considers his first _real _love to be _Pride and Prejudice_, read the summer before his senior year and hidden beneath a pornographic magazine or two (when in reality, he found the online community of authors to be much more adept to his taste than even the visual). And he discovered, finally, a dream to chase, between the pages of Kurt Vonnegut and Charles Dickens: a lifelong passion to share the power of stories and the written word to assuage the human soul and ease the wound of loneliness.

He's reading through a couple emails when he receives an unexpected visitor.

"Hi, Mr. Yeager," Koen says as he pulls up a chair, and Eren clears a spot for him to put his lunch.

"I usually don't see you on Tuesdays."

"Well, don't worry. It's not just to hang out, or whatever," Koen says with a good-humored roll of the eyes. He passes over a large stack of papers.

"Ah," Eren says. "Course selection."

"Yeah," Koen grimaces, "and like, I have literally no clue, like, what to do."

"Well, it looks like you've got space for an elective next year. Why not take some sort of art or industrial tech class? I was talking to Mr. Arlert the other day and he tells me your diorama was phenomenal. Ah, and speaking of the devil…"

Armin appears in the doorway of the English Department, and catches Eren's eye. "Oh, sorry," he says, giving a wave to Koen. "Is this a bad time?"

"Koen and I are just discussing course selection for next year. What's up?"

Armin looks as if he's about to say something, mouth open just slightly to give way to the words waiting in anticipation on his tongue, but he swallows whatever it is. "That's all right," he says instead. "I'll tell you later. It's not important." And then he's gone.

Eren turns back to Koen's papers. "So yeah. As I was saying, why not start with an elective?"

"My mom says I should just take what I want, but, like, I don't know what's even a plausible option with all of _this,_" he gestures, with a move of his hands meant to encompass all of him.

What was before just a suspicion, dawns on Eren with full realization. He leans forward, twirling his pen between his fingers. "Koen, I told you I was dyslexic, right?"

Koen shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "I don't think you mentioned it."

"Mine was at its worst in elementary school, and I'm still paranoid over my own spelling and such, but my point is that you shouldn't let this thing scare you away from doing what you love," Eren says. He takes a breath. "You're so much more capable than you could ever imagine.

"Now, I can't really say much about what level of math and science you should take next year—that's something your counselor, other teachers, and Ms. Ral could be of help with—but at least in terms of English, you got a solid B this past semester, which is really great, by the way. And this semester, an A's definitely not out of the question with the progress you've been making. You _could_ move up to the honors track for next year if you wanted to—I'd give my approval for that. It wouldn't be easy, that's for sure, but if you applied yourself, like you've been doing, and utilized your study skills and resources, I've got no doubt that Sophomore Honors English is something you could do."

Koen gives a slow nod.

"Sorry, that wasn't much of a decisive answer, was it?"

"I've got 'til next week to figure it out. I just need to think about it more, I guess," he shrugs. Packing up his things, Koen heads for the door. "I'm gonna get some studying for math done in the library. See ya, Mr. Yeager. And thanks."

Eren watches him go. "Anytime."

**. . . . .**

He sends Armin a text later that day. _Wat was that u wanted to talk to me about? _His phone lights up a few minutes later. _I'll tell you at lunch. _But Armin never shows.

The three of them—him, Armin, and Mikasa—have plans to go out to lunch at a small Mediterranean place in town, but when Mikasa meets him, she brings no news of Armin.

"I stopped by his room on my way over, but I didn't see him," she says.

"Let's head out anyways. Maybe he'll meet us there." Communication, after all, has never been a particular strong suit of their relationship.

It's a charming little restaurant with stucco walls and stone accents and warm-toned tables and chairs. With the tasteful decor and warm lighting, you could almost forget about the snow outside.

They grab a table not too small, but just big enough for the two of them and Armin if he shows up, and place their orders. Aside from them, one other couple sits at the opposite side of the room, both too entranced by their food to make conversation, and Eren's suddenly very thankful for the swing music playing in the background. But there's really nothing to worry about, and music isn't exactly a necessity, for they've had ample practice eating in the presence of one another at dinner, at lunch, and what just barely constitutes as a breakfast.

Eren likes to think he's grown used to how she prefers to listen, rather than talk while eating, nodding her head thoughtfully as she chews her food, speaking aloud the little thoughts that cross her mind rather than entire stories, for those come only after she's finished eating her main meal and as she sips at her drink. This lunch is no different than any of their other meals, but—perhaps it's the lighting, or Frank Sinatra crooning overhead—the rate of his heartbeat decides differently.

The food comes out rather quickly—he orders some pasta dish he butchered the name of, and she some sort of fish—and conversation revolves mainly around their kids, as usual, and their regrets about having to return to school in a short while. They avoid talking about Armin's absence, both trying to avoid thinking of the worst, but Eren's mind keeps slipping back to his blond haired friend, and what it was he had to say to him earlier that day; he sees Mikasa's mind occupies a similar space, catches her glancing intermittently towards the third chair at the table.

"A drink sounds like a _great_ idea before heading back," Eren jokes as they both look at the wine list as they wait for their checks.

Mikasa laughs. "If only," she sighs.

His eyes scan over a few select beers, their whiskeys, an incredibly varied selection of white wine, before a glaring typo leaps out in front of him. Eren cringes.

"What's wrong?"

"Listen to this: 'red wines include merlot, _syrah and cabernet sauvignon.'" _

She stares at him with a blank expression, before shrugging her shoulders.

"They missed the oxford comma!"

"Isn't that an entirely optional punctuation choice?

"What!? No! It's a non negotiable rule."

She smirks. "Not just pretentious?" she muses, leaning forward as if to taunt him.

Aghast, Eren fished out a pen from his back pocket and leans across the table, closing the gap to reach her napkin. "Let me show you," he says as he furiously scribbles away, "what becomes of Nelson Mandela in the absence of the oxford comma—courtesy of _Times_' TV Listings."

_Highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector. _

"…Point taken."

"That's right. Stay in your lane, science teacher." He lifts his head up to deliver a triumphant grin only to realize how incredibly close their faces are. The instinct to draw back, to return to the safety of space, is overridden by something deeper and more demanding. They're so close. Too close. Just a breath away. Her obsidian eyes hold him captive, and he cannot tear himself away. And in these past two weeks, and especially right now, he's found himself wondering how soft her delicate, rose petal lips must be to the touch.

They are as soft as he imagined. Perhaps softer, even. And it's one of those moments in which he can't tell how he arrived, but he's here, and so is she, and somehow they're kissing. It's a strange feeling inside his chest: panic, and yet calm; somewhere between indecision and resolve. And then it's over. A waiter returns their cards, and Mikasa's on her feet.

"Ready to go?" Mikasa asks.

Eren swears he can still feel her lips on his, and yet she seems so incredibly unaffected, so incredibly unchanged. His lips are burning, branded with the heat of her kiss. And what is there to prove it wasn't just a dream?

**. . . . .**

Hot water pounds against his bare chest, and he's back at it again, his back against the wall for support as his hand trails up and down his length. Stifling a moan, Eren tips his head back, letting water hit his throat. This is the fourth fucking time this week, and the second time today. Fuck. How is he supposed to explain two showers in one day? How do all his cold showers end up steaming up the bathroom?

They haven't talked about what happened at the restaurant this past Wednesday, haven't acknowledged the kiss, and Eren's realized that this is what they're best at: pretending, ignoring, forgetting. They rebuilt their friendship by sweeping that night tangled in his sheets beneath the rug, disregard that kiss, and he has spent far too long acting like he doesn't feel something, like he doesn't want her in the most intimate of ways, like he doesn't starve for her skin, doesn't hunger for the taste of her, the feel of her. He has spent far too long pretending like he doesn't notice how his heart beats a step faster when she's near, or how his ears ache for the sound of her laugh, her voice. He is done pretending, done ignoring, done forgetting. He thinks of her, and this time, he doesn't fight it.

He thinks of her as he strokes himself, the palm of his hand incredibly warm against his sensitive skin, he thinks of kissing her again, just like that one time in the restaurant, except ten times more wanting, ten times more needing, hot and aching for her, thinks of sinking into her wet heat, of all of her everywhere, overwhelming him, consuming him...

His abdomen contracts, his hips jerk, and this time, he doesn't catch the groan before it falls from his lips, as he spills onto the tile floor. Breath heaving, his back slides down the wall so that he sits, splayed out upon the cramped space of her shower, water hitting his skin like ceaseless rain, droplets gliding over and off his skin. And she is an oil spill: impossible to contain, impossible to wash away. He scrubs his skin raw trying to rid himself of her, yet still wants her in the unholiest of ways—to feel her heartbeat at his teeth, taste his own name falling from her lips—and beyond that, a second cup of coffee across from him in morning, another voice, another heartbeat beside him. The veil lifted, facade unmasked, forced gaze into the looking glass before him, Eren realizes he wants her in a way he's never wanted anybody before: virtuous and honest, simply her in what can't be only body. Lonesome no more, lonesome no more, and he is terrified. Terrified, because surely whatever this is, is destined to tear him apart.

Reaching up, his hand turns the faucet to stop the water. Water drips from his hair into his eyes, and he sighs, shoulders slumping as he hangs his head. God, he has to get out of this apartment.

When he finally emerges from the shower, toweling off and throwing on a pair of boxers, his phone rings once, twice, and he picks up on the third.

"Hey, Armin," maybe he could stay at his place while the heater situation gets fixed. Surely, Armin wouldn't mind. "You doing okay? I haven't seen you since Wednesday."

"Eren. Hey." There's something wrong about his voice. He remembers holding his mother's frail hand, running his thumb over her parchment thin skin because it calmed her. "Can you meet me at that one coffee place? The one in Trost?" Armin asks.

"I'll meet you there in fifteen minutes," Eren replies.

**. . . . .**

As promised, they meet at the coffee shop. It's ten minutes until closing, and they both order steaming cups of tea to go, settling on a bench outside in the sleeping town square. Sipping at their tea, they hope to drink away the cold as they sit beneath a flickering street light; in a small town like Trost, the city falls asleep right at ten, empty and hollow, darkened windows wait to be woken in morning, and the theatre lights blaze on, content to put on their show for no one. It's a silent sort of night where the air waits to shatter and the living tiptoe, walk as if trying to cross a frozen lake, and hold their breath for good measure.

And Eren waits. Because the privilege to speak first belongs to Armin in this moment, but even so, Eren already knows. And perhaps he's known all along since mid-Wednesday, suspected this was coming but didn't want to face it—funny how that seems to be how he lives his life nowadays. In the streetlight, he watches their breath trail from their lips and up into the night sky, like smoke from factory smokestacks. Mechanical, predictable, orderly—churning, churning, until stopping suddenly, without warning. The conveyor belts halt, the production lines freeze, the workers hang up their uniforms and march outwards, the factory doors closing and locking shut behind them. That's all human life really is, in the end.

The silence breaks with a sigh, a single exhale.

"The doctor confirmed it. It's liver failure," Armin says, and the words aren't directed towards Eren, for they're not said to be heard, but rather, said to be said. "The only thing that could feasibly work is a liver transplant or some other form of invasive surgery. And he's already eighty-six, and you know, there just comes a point where, when you consider age, and cost, and recuperation, it doesn't really matter in the end." The tears fall freely now, and they don't roll with the fresh bite of sadness, but long lasting pain of exhaustion and defeat. "Grandfather's decided to wait it out at home. He doesn't have much longer. We've got a nurse coming to stay with us. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

Eren places a hand on Armin's shoulder. As if the touch of a hand could make any of this better. And he wonders if Armin remembers that day all those years ago when he'd found out about his mother, how Armin had comforted him, reminded him of the impossible, how life would somehow be okay. But Eren can't speak. He has no words. Doesn't know how to talk it all better when his own heart's already gone through this sort of break. The touch of a hand. This is all he can give.

**. . . . .**

When he comes home, it's well past twelve. After he and Armin parted ways, he'd gone for a drive, the radio off and the windows down despite the frigid winter night, forced himself to feel everything. He stood outside just as it began to lightly snow, and watched as the flakes disappeared at the touch, and wondered why it was the most beautiful things break so easily.

He tries not to make too much noise as he walks in to the apartment, but it makes no difference.

"You left in such a hurry," Mikasa says. "Is everything all right?" She sits on his bed—or, he supposes, her couch—and he considers it a rather bold move for her, this breach of territory, that she comes dressed only in the loose but thin fabric of her nightwear, a plain long sleeved blouse and pants. He traces over line and curve, follows the shadow of her collarbone as it disappears beneath the neckline of her shirt, the fabric of which just grazes the swell of her breasts, a calm rise and fall with each breath. And yet Eren finds himself most overcome by the sight of her ankles and bare feet, peeking out from the legs of her pants, the smooth, pale undersides of her wrists, defenseless and pure. It's a subtle display of vulnerability and trust; he seldom sees her like this, for usually she retreats to her room for the night and he doesn't see her again until morning when she's dressed and ready for the day, put together and composed.

He shrugs off his coat and takes a seat beside her, almost close enough to touch, perhaps too close, but then she doesn't move. And he tells her, in so few words, the bare bones of it all, recognizes in his own voice the same defeat and exhaustion that Armin carried in his. He wishes he could cry, or get angry, feel anything but this numbness, but all that's left in him is _this again_, and the tiredness that comes with knowing what happens next.

"I'm sorry," she whispers when he's done. She's so close, so unbelievably close, he can pick up just a touch of her perfume lingering somewhere on her skin, and it's not like Wednesday when his heart was pounding, thumping, ready to combust; this time, it's all unbelievably calm, unbelievably quiet, when they come together and kiss.

In the philosophy course he took in college, he'd read a paper—by whom, sadly he doesn't remember—about how time was purely a concept constructed by man, a futile attempt to measure the measureless, how there is no beginning or end, no real past and future, but only the infinite present. He hadn't taken the time to really try and comprehend it back then. It was all much too pretentious, much too absurd, but right now he's kissing her, and there's no beginning or end to it, just him and her, all of her soft and warm, and rather than the tick of the clock, a far better measure of the present is the beat of a heart. Hers is so loud, so resonating, so present, and as he brings his hands to her jaw to bring her closer it envelops him, engulfs him, floods his blood with something far greater and more powerful than he could ever understand. This is the infinite present. Eren understands.

And he's gone from feeling nothing, utter emptiness, to feeling so much all at once, and he's not sure how to hold it all. Surely, this woman will destroy him. But when she murmurs, "Come to bed," breath sweet upon her lips, somehow he doesn't mind.

Still kissing, one hand at her hip and the other at her jaw, her fingers tangled in his hair, they brave the journey from the couch to her room, six paces in all. One step, than two steps, than three. Another, and another, and one more.


	12. Chapter 12

**Warnings: sexual content (but you already knew that) **

**A/N: Thank you so much for your continued support here as well as on tumblr. Your reviews from the last chapter I posted were absolutely hilarious. You guys are the best.**

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**12\. When Life Gives You Lemons, Practice Safe Sex**

They stand across from one another toe to toe before her well made bed, and never did he think a mattress could be so foretelling and imposing of a presence until right now, because he's so anticipating, and frightened, and eager all at once. And Eren realizes that he's been waiting for this moment for a very long time.

Still out of breath, Eren wets his lips and silently slips off his shirt; ears burning red, he forces himself not to look away from her to gauge her reaction. Her eyes flutter away from his down to his chest, and she holds her breath as she raises a hesitant hand to trail her fingers across his torso; there is something like fire in her touch, and his skin aches to burn. Mikasa's fingers trace over muscle and rib, pausing where his hips dive beneath his boxers, before they return to the first button of her night blouse to unclasp it.

And this is all so much more different than the last time, every kiss and touch of the hand deliberate and measured. One by one, Mikasa undoes each button, a small expanse of skin blossoming into view each time until finally, her blouse, completely unbuttoned, slides down her shoulders, leaving her pale breasts exposed and vulnerable as it drops to the ground below. Night eyes locked on him, she sighs a shuddering sigh, and it's his turn. The pit of his stomach aches with longing and lust, his length hard and straining against his pants as he traces the line of her collarbone to the center of her chest, his palm settling between her breasts where it rises and falls with her breathing, trailing down to rest at her soft belly, middle finger circling her navel. Her skin is like moonlight, soft and ethereal, his hands far too undeserving, far too inferior, to hold her. But there's something so immortalizing about touch, as if having her between his hands preserves her from the passage of time. And Eren understands why the painter paints. Why the sculptor sculpts.

Looking up for her approval, he presses a kiss to her parted lips before bending down to draw a long, languid lick across her breast, her nipples growing hard on contact. He sucks and laps at her chest, kisses all tongue and teeth, hands reaching up to massage her flesh, the other hand assisting with the other unattended half of her, tweaking and rolling her nipple between thumb and middle finger, mouth and hand switching recipients after a moment, and Mikasa hums her satisfaction.

After a time, he finds his lips trailing down her stomach, kissing where each rib lies under the skin, his panting breath hot against her lower belly, and she guides his hands to the waistband of her pants, allowing him to slip them down her hips to reveal a modest pair of black underwear, but before his fingers can even graze her thighs, her same hands bring his face up to hers, delivering a searing kiss. And maybe she's been waiting for this just as much as he has.

Her tongue slips past his lips to meet his, tentative yet bold, diminutive assertiveness, everything about this is a paradox: he never thought he could receive so much from giving, but he does, and never has he ever wanted someone to take him so much. She could take all of him, leave him barren, picked down to the bone—he wouldn't mind so long as it was her. Her hands fumble with his belt before she slips away his pants and boxers, his length springing up, ready to receive her, when she thrusts her hips out to meet him, grinding her want on his erection through her panties, nails carving into his shoulder as she tenses.

A groan escapes from Eren's lips and he pulls away to look into her half-lidded eyes. And this is all so much different than the last time, because this time, he's sober and present, and she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen: lithe and pliant, responsive to the touch, hair sticking to her neck with sweat, rose-petal lips parted and brow furrowed, she moves again him like the swell of a wave. Guiding her, Eren lays her down upon the bed.

"Do you want this?" Eren asks. Splayed out before him, Mikasa peers up at him, unapologetic and unwavering all except for the flush upon her cheeks; her hair billows out onto the pillow like a spill of ink, back arching up towards him as his hands rove over her ribcage, her stomach. And staring into her eyes, he wonders if she knows, if she can tell how over his head he is with her, how he's terrified and fascinated by her all at the same time.

She wets her lips before she speaks. "I want you," Mikasa whispers back.

_I want you_. This time, he'll remember. Slowly, Eren bends down to kiss her on the lips, and aside from their nakedness, aside from where this is all destined to go, it's chaste and innocent, the only way he knows how to say thank you for something he's needed to hear but never knew he needed to for the longest of times. When he withdraws she lifts her chin, reaching for him, but he's already long gone, hands at her ankles as he kisses his way from her knee up her inner thigh.

He pauses at her core, holding her gaze as he removes her panties; she lifts her hips to assist in the process, and he can't help but give himself a few strokes at the sight, hoping to assuage, if only for a moment, the nagging ache growing at the base of his stomach. It doesn't work, of course, but her desire precedes his need, and so, after ghosting his fingers over the thatch of hair leading southward, he licks, tentatively, at her center, her body curving up to meet him. And then he's there, kissing, lapping, fully at her core, tongue, and lips and all, losing himself in the taste of her, the feel of her, the sound of her, all whimpers and silent moans, he stops only to wet two fingers, slipping them into her wet heat. How rewarding, how wholly satisfying, to feel her hands tangled in his hair, nails scraping against his scalp as his fingers slide in and out of her; how unreal, how entrancing, to hear her quiet sobs as his tongue entertains her where she's most sensitive, teeth brushing against her clit.

She comes. She comes, crying out, her hips jerking forward, and her taut belly clenching, Eren pauses, letting her ride out her orgasm on his two fingers, before pressing a soft kiss to her core, her belly, both of her breasts, her throat, before finally returning to her lips.

His thighs aside her hips, with each heavy breath, her hardened nipples rise, grazing, skimming across his chest like the willow's leaves upon the surface of the water, and yes, he may not believe in god or afterlife, but his body bearing down on her, kissing her over, and over, wet kisses filled with something hungrier than desire—it's the closest thing he's ever felt to prayer.

Fumbling for the condom is a clumsy affair as they break with reluctance to complete this obligatory task. Sitting back on his knees, he watches as she pulls an unopened box of condoms from her bedside table—and as curious as Eren is to find out whether she'd bought the box recently or if she's just always prepared for anything (deep down, he know's it's far more likely to be the latter) this isn't quite the moment to ask—her head dipping down and ears bright red as she struggles with the packaging, she politely waves away his attempts to assist, resolved to salvage the remnants of her pride. It's all he can do to grin and hold back his laughter as he watches her triumph over opening the box instantly fades as she immediately encounters the task of separating the individual packets from each other, the final challenge of tearing the single one open.

Of course, she wipes that amused smirk straight off his face and reclaims a shred of her dignity as soon as she's upon him, eliciting a hiss, and then a moan, his head tipping back as she rolls the condom onto his length. Kissing his exposed neck, pink tongue lazy at his jaw, Mikasa reclines back onto the bed, his figure following hers like a shadow to rest upon a single forearm, the other hand dedicated to kneading her breast.

"Eren," she pleads as the tip of his tongue catches the beads of sweat collecting between her breasts. "Eren. Eren, _please_." And how could he deny her when she says his name like _that_?

Hyper aware that she watches him position himself at her entrance, his nervousness results in a trajectory problem concerning his intent to enter her; instead, the tip of him missing, slipping up along the seam of her center and brushing against her clit. She gasps, whines, mistaking his accident as purposeful. Apologizing with peppered kisses to her neck, he tries again, his second attempt successful, sliding into her slow at first, and then all at once, bringing them both to a collective moan.

For a moment, there's nothing but their labored breathing and the stillness of the night. It's a stunned sort of silence, the sort of silence where the entire world seems to hold its breath in wait. The wind outside the bedroom window ceases its midnight whisper, and the white moon, sensing a change in the land below her, hesitates as she passes through the night sky. And all those months back at the beginning of the year when he'd flown into her in the hallway, Eren could have never anticipated this—because this isn't just sex, it's something ten times more terrifying and ten times more consuming. He is tumbling, tumbling, upwards faster than he could ever imagine.

And he's not so sure falling up is the same thing as ascension, but with only a look, the softness of two gazes meeting, converging, soundless in the exchange, they both begin to move, and maybe, just maybe, it is, because heaven is in the weight of her hips against his, the omnipotence of a god the only thing possibly responsible for the sound, the reverberating feel, of her whimpering sighs.

Their thrusts begin steady, not fast but still unhurried, not slow yet not quite desperate—not yet. Strange how the friction of moving in her, with her, lends itself to harmony, his mind at peace as it soars. Her legs wrapped around his waist to bring herself closer, her arms encircling his neck, every metaphor and simile, Neruda's lyrical verse and Cummings' staggered structure, floods his mind as he makes love to her, he understands it all, lives, breathes, feels this sonnet in all of her; and if he were a braver man, he'd whisper, line by line, poem after poem into her ear, but instead he traces the words into her skin with his tongue, kisses her, and hopes she can taste the prose on his breath. In this way, he holds the looking glass before the moon.

That heat in the pit of his belly grows and grows, coiling and coiling tighter and tighter, and maybe that high would come faster at a different angle, a better position than missionary, but forehead to forehead, nose trailing the line of her jaw to suckle at that spot behind her ear, he can't bear to part from this, from the feeling of her hot breath against his lips, to the kiss of her eyelashes against his cheek. Like this, she is everywhere, and yet below him she feels so small, as if she could fit in the palm of his hand.

They're close, both of them so close, and he doesn't realize he's moaning, low in his throat, driving into her faster and faster with every snap of his hips until the moment of silence that follows her pulling away to murmur, "Wait."

Confused and caught off guard, Eren's hips come to a stop, and that insecurity he was keeping locked deep underground escapes. She isn't in to him. She regrets this. This was all a mistake. He begins to mentally ready himself to collect his clothes and his things and leaves, but she asks him to do nothing of the sort. Instead, she directs him to sit back on his knees, and then straddling him, she lowers herself back down on him, both of them crying out so much louder than the first time their bodies met.

Brushing his bangs from his eyes, Mikasa reassures him, kissing him deeply on the mouth, inviting him to move again with the rise and drop of her hips. Eren moans into the crook of her shoulder as he slides into her deeper than he did before, both of them reaching out to wrap the other in an embrace. Like this, his hands slide down the curve of her back, her ass, reach between them to feel at her breasts, attending to the soft flesh of her nipples. Like this, she is once again everywhere, and not so small, meeting his thrusts equally, unapologetically, not so timid, not demure, and she has always been in control. They begin to move faster, harder, moving with abandon as they seek that peak, and it's no wonder he chants her name like a prayer.

He holds out just long enough to let her come first, her climax washing over her, through her, like an ocean wave upon the rocks, her body quaking, shuddering, the arrival of her orgasm vocalizing as his name, a broken, shuddering moan that spills from her lips. And he comes when she calls, hips thrusting into her three more times before they still, and he spills all of him out for her. Spent, she tips backwards, and he follows, the both of them collapsing back down into her bed, breathless.

**. . . . .**

Staring up at the ceiling in their post-coital silence, Eren realizes that he's never been in her room before, only seen glimpses of it when she leaves the door cracked open. But it's what he imagined: not incredibly personalized—a single generic print of a quaint cottage by the shore hanging on the walls—and clean and tidy. It reminds him, in a sense, of a hotel room, so hard to pick out the remnants of inhabitants. It's only after he comes back from cleaning up in the bathroom, and she leaves to take her own turn that he notices the picture frame sitting on the nightstand.

She can't be older than ten in the picture, out in the garden with her mother and father. And he's never seen her smile like that, smile as big as the floppy hat she wears atop her head, triumphantly holding up her shovel and disfigured carrot in her hands.

"Sorry," he apologizes when she returns, clad only in her nightshirt, placing the picture frame back in its rightful spot.

"You're all right," she says, climbing back into bed. The clock reads nearly half an hour past one, and he wonders if this means he has to return to the couch, but, to his welcome surprise, she slides in next to him between the sheets, rests her head upon his bare chest. "That's the latest photo I have of the three of us," she says. "You lost your parents when you were young too, right?"

Eren nods. She smells like sex, and sweat, and the faintest hint of that apple-blossom perfume. "My dad left us when I was ten, and my mother died from cancer just before I started high school—I stayed with Armin and his grandfather after that." He doesn't add that he feels as if he's about to lose a father all over again. "And you?" Again comes the guilt from bonding over tragedy.

Her limbs shift beneath the sheets. "It was a burglary gone wrong," she says, the tone of her voice unaffected, and yet she feels so stiff against him.

"Oh, god, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring it up—I didn't know."

"It's all right," she whispers, "I asked first."

They lie quiet for a long while, and she breathes so softly, Eren wonders if she's fallen asleep, thinks it no harm when he presses a kiss to her forehead. But then her eyes flutter open, and they're kissing again, heavy sighs and swollen lips, and her hand reaches south beneath the covers to reach for him over his boxers as his fingers slip into her core. Mikasa moans, and any fatigue he felt weighing on his limbs instantly disappears, his energy revived as they discard their clothes once more onto the bedroom floor. Her hand feels so much better than his own as it works up and down his length, especially attentive at the tip, and _fuck_ how is he ever going to feel content with his own touch again?

The hands on the clock upon her bedside table count out the seconds, the minutes, the hours, spinning round and round without conclusion through the dark winter night. And his time, the second round is just as vivid as the first, and he is glad, oh so glad, that he can commit this all to memory. This time there won't be any sneaking away in the early hours of the morning, this time they'll have to confront the consequences of their choices headon, can't blame this time on the persuasion of beer and wine. This is them entirely. And Eren wonders, what awaits them come sunrise, come tomorrow, come the day after that, but it's so hard to see past the present as it spans out in front of them as an infinite plane. So he lives for the moment, lives for the way she moans out his name as he slides into her again.


	13. Chapter 13

**Warnings: sexual content**

**A/N: Sorry this one is so short! I just felt like it was what the story needed. Thanks for always taking the time to review!**

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**13\. Interlude: The New Normal**

He is an incredibly passionate lover, and she's not the least bit surprised—he's passionate about everything he does. But to be the object of his ardor, to feel it hot against her skin, burning, searing, overflowing from him to her. Everything about him is so honest, and so eager to give, give, give, and this is how they are. This is how they kiss, how they touch, make love (Is this what they're calling it now? When did they become like this? Perhaps they've always been…) and she can't help but wonder how he holds it all. And yet what surprises her most, scares her most, isn't him, but herself, because every time she takes, and takes, and takes, she finds herself yearning to give. Before him, she didn't think she had that capacity. Even now she's still unsure. Because when she thinks of herself—who she is, what she came from—she thinks barren, empty. What is there to give? What is there to want of her? Maybe that's why he's so addictive. Why she keep returning to him, yearning for him. He wants her. That's never happened before.

These days he sleeps in her bed. Every night now. The first few nights he was hesitant, but wordlessly, she led him in until he needed no invitation, wandered in and climbed into bed alongside her. Humans are creatures of habit and she expected more resistance from herself in sharing her bed with another body. But this feels so right, as if this change restores an old order.

This morning, Mikasa wakes to the familiar weight of his arm around her waist, and Shina across her legs. As he sleeps through the first chimes of the alarm clock, she laces her fingers with his, thumb running over the skin of his hand. His warm breath is comforting at the back of her neck, and his body curls around her like the way ivy twists to accommodate the bends and turns, the corners, the edges of a house. It's so hard to force herself out of bed, hard to resist the call of sleep. And of course, it could just be all the sex they're having—that production of oxytocin and reduction of cortisol, all that hormonal jazz—but she can hardly remember a time when sleep came so easily.

The second alarm goes off, and Mikasa silences it, rolling over to face Eren's sleeping figure. His brown hair a mess, and brow knit together as if deep in thought, he looks so lovely when he sleeps. There's a certain youth that returns to him in dreams. How she longs to reach out and brush his bangs from his eyes, trace the line of his jaw, press her lips to his bare skin: his eyelids, his throat…

"Eren," she says, rubbing his arm. "Come on, it's already six o'clock."

"Few more minutes," he mumbles, eyes still closed.

"Don't you need the shower?"

"Thought we took care of that last night."

"I'm not sure that qualifies."

But he doesn't relent. So with a sigh, Mikasa pulls herself out of bed and heads to the bathroom. In front of the mirror as she brushes her teeth, she blushes at the sight of the shower in the reflection, their clothes strewn about by her ankles.

Last night, they'd ended up in the shower together. Water beating down on them, he'd insisted on helping her.

"Shower sex seems dangerous," she'd whispered, his hands on her hips as he kissed the back of her neck, his erection pressing at her posterior.

"We don't have to have it now," he'd murmured in her ear. "Just let me do this for you."

And so she did. She stood there and let him soap her up, hands sliding across her body, slow and attentive. He started at her feet, sitting her down on the shower ledge—a few bottles falling to the ground in the process—and kneeling down before her for better access. She squirmed, held back a ticklish giggle as he soaped between her toes, but her muffled laughs quickly turned to hums of satisfaction as he began to massage her feet, kneading into the pads, applying pressure in all the right places, before gliding up to her ankles, her calves, and shins. At this point, she stood, pouring shampoo in the palm of her hand, and reaching out to lather his scalp, fingers massaging his head and hair as his hands worked their way up her legs, and she shivers as his fingers trace circles into her inner thighs, higher and higher, her pulse skyrocketing in anticipation for the touch where she needs it but will never come.

His hands finally pass over her ass where he'd given a playful squeeze before they rested at her hips. And all there was, was his warm hands on her hips, his rigid erection, too proud to be ignored, between his legs (he always, always attends to her before himself, which baffles her to no end) and his breath, labored and hot before her core. For a moment she thought he might kiss her there—_wanted_ him to kiss her there. But he didn't, instead he rose to his feet, her fingers slipping from his hair, and his hands moving to her belly and torso.

His eyes, alight with that familiar look, bore into her own, and she willed herself not to look away, her efforts in vain when his hands began to squeeze her breasts, her head tipping back with a moan.

Mikasa remembers how slowly he'd soaped the rest of her chest, her arms, her fingers, how he'd lathered her hair with such care, hissing, gritting his teeth, when she'd reached out to caress his length.

"What happened to shower sex being too dangerous?" Eren panted, maneuvering her so that they were both under the direct stream of water to rinse off, her back against the wall perpendicular to the shower head for support.

"This isn't sex."

"Well," he had said, leaning his forearm above her, his face so close to his she'd arched up to kiss him, "two can play at this game." And then, after rinsing them off in the stream, he'd slipped two fingers into her.

Mikasa remembers, as she brushes her hair, that familiar heat pooling in the center of her thighs and lower belly, how they'd finished each other off, knees nearly buckling under them (confirming her earlier statement about the dangers of sexual escapades in the shower), how his voice had gone to that deeper, rougher octave as he'd whispered, "I can still keep going if you want," in her ear, teeth tugging at her earlobe. She remembers rinsing off in silence, that silence still holding as they dried off, only breaking when he finally entered her, both of them moaning aloud.

Finished in the bathroom, Mikasa returns to the bedroom, stands, in the doorway, and simply watches him sleep, follows the muscles in his back shifting as he breathes, gaze lingering on the way the blanket falls at his hips. And how easy it would be to climb back in beside him, make love again and again to the sound of one of his records on repeat—how idyllic, how indulgent. She never used to be one to indulge. But it's a school day today, and even the briefest of tumbles between the sheets would render them unacceptably late. She really should wake him. But the image of him sleeping there reminds her of freshly fallen snow, and she feels the same regret at having to rouse him as she does stepping down onto perfect white. A few more minutes of sleep can't hurt anyone.

Mikasa makes her way to her closet, throwing it open, and quickly grabbing the blouse and skirt combination she'd picked out the night before. There comes the rustle of sheets, a yawn and stretch conveniently at the moment she pulls her shirt over her head in one fluid movement, leaving herself completely naked, nipples pebbling in the slightly chilly February air. The feeling of his gaze on her body is so distinctive; it sends shivers of anticipation and want down her spine—especially when he looks at her like that. A gaze has its own touch, and she feels him drinking her in, traveling down the curve of her spine, her ass. She pretends she doesn't feel him lingering on those dimples at the small of her back, the birthmark the size of a quarter marking the pale of her wrist.

She bends down to shimmy into her underwear, and a long whistle comes from the direction of the bed. Mikasa whips around to shoot Eren an accusatory glance, a secret thrill pounding in her chest from the knowledge that now he has a full view of her breasts; likewise, she meets his mischievous grin, bottom lip trapped between his teeth and eyes hazy.

"Come on, you have to get up."

Eren looks from his comfortable position on the bed, to the direction of the bathroom, and then back to her again. "_God_, you're hot," he says. And that earns him a shirt thrown straight to his face.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Bet you thought you saw the last of me! Sorry I've been AWOL. Uni started up for me, and I'm still adjusting to the schedule. Expect updates to be infrequent since, of course, studies come first. **

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**14.** **BRING ON THE HEAT—BUT NOT THAT KIND**

It's hard to believe that it's finally March. It feels as if New Year's just passed last spring. She can vividly remember the time when Hannes should've been finished with Eren's heating within a week—that was mid-January. But with various difficulties with infrastructure, communication barriers, and, most recently, a family emergency back in Germany (from what they could gather, it sounded like Hannes' great-aunt and matriarch of the family had taken gravely ill) a set date for Eren's apartment to be fixed kept getting pushed farther and farther back. Not that either of them really mind, of course. In fact, the return to the old is a part of the future she'd rather not think about. It's all much too complicated, or, perhaps, much too simple. But then again, when you get down to it, aren't those things basically the same?

Back next door isn't exactly a dramatic move and besides, living together permanently has certain implications, and they are not those implications. They're not dating, not "boyfriend and girlfriend"—a term whose overuse and bastardization by her high school kids leaves an immature taste in her mouth—but certainly they're not just fucking. It's more than that. They're friends, but not "just friends." Mikasa can't explain it, and this lack of definition torments her, steal away her train of thought in class, encourages idleness of thought, and vacant empty stares in lulls of silence. Her mind wanders during department meetings, during class lectures, when one of her former students now in the AP Environmental class comes to ask her a question.

"Weather is just one of those things where we see it, we experience it, we even know a thing or two about it, but it just has so many variables, so many complications, that we just can't quite figure it out," she tries to explain.

"Then how are meteorologists supposed to provide people with accurate weather models?"

"They can't, I suppose," she replies. "I guess we just have to pack our raincoats and umbrellas and hope for sun."

Everything, excluding Mr. Arlert's deteriorating health, has been going rather smoothly for the beginning of second semester. Her AP Biology kids have finished learning all the material, and from here on to the end of the year it's practice exams and the occasional lab; the freshmen seem much more relaxed now that they've had a taste of their first semester, a few bold ones following the example of their upperclassmen under the false impression that they can cruise the rest of the year—though, if she's being entirely honest, the sloth of approaching summer has begun to afflict her, too.

"See, I don't get to slack off until April," Sasha pouts, "until after the State competition."

"Well I'm not _supposed_ to be getting lazy this early in the game. That's the problem."

Sasha groans: "Okay. So we have an off day this Friday—"

"Nope. They changed that just this year. Not anymore."

"Dammit! Okay fine, so full week this week, and then the restof March with no breaks, and then Spring Break the first week of April. After that, I've got State, the kids have prom, AP tests, the seniors graduate, and then underclassmen finals, and we're out for the summer."

"Post-Spring Break always flies."

"But the weeks leading up to it—_god_."

"—Just drag on and on."

The bell for the end of the passing period rings, making Sasha jump. She'd stopped by to finally return Mikasa's pie tin and drop off some of her own casserole.

"I guess I'd better be getting to class," Sasha sighs. "I don't want the freshmen losing any fingers, or worse—raiding my supply pantry. That's the thing about semester long classes: you make so much progress with the first group, and then you have to start all over again."

Mikasa smiles. "Guess you should've been a science teacher."

Wrinkling her nose, Sasha taps on the container of a frog floating in formaldehyde on Mikasa's desk. "I'll pass."

"You know, I smelled chicken down there the other day. Isn't it rather—"

"Don't even _try_ to compare dissection with gutting a chicken! Oh my god!"

"All right. All right. Suit yourself."

"Oh, hey. Before I forget—that new sushi place that just opened up. I know it's a school night, but want to check it out with me?" Sasha snaps back around and draws close to Mikasa's face, her eyes wide.

Mikasa hesitates. She really shouldn't. She's already uncharacteristically behind on getting papers back. The dishes need cleaning and the laundry needs folding.

"Sure," she finally blurts out. "Why not?"

Sasha hoots in elation. "Awesome. I'll text you the address later. See you, Mikasa!"

"Bye, Sasha."

Mikasa watches Sasha leave, and the giddiness that has been sneaking up on her little by little finally crashes over her, and she breaks out into a grin. Glad that this is her off period, and there aren't' any students to bear witness, Mikasa thrusts both fists into the air, glad that the doors are thick enough that no passerbyers have a chance of hearing her victorious exclamation. Screw the laundry! Screw the dishes! The papers can wait!

"Yes!" and checking the schedule, she rushes off to tell Eren the good news.

**. . . . .**

She finds him spilled over some papers at his desk.

"Hey," she says, shutting the door behind her.

"Hey," he says back; he clears a spot on his desk, an invitation, and she can feel his eyes following her legs as she walks towards him.

"I"m going out to dinner with Sasha tonight," she says as she sits in front of him, crossing her legs at the ankles. LIke this, he has to lift his chin to look at her, a break from their normal. She rarely sees him from this angle, and she decides she quite likes it, the way his jaw looks with his chin pointed up to her, the skin of his neck exposed. His hands stroke her knees and she tries, to no avail, to resist entertaining the fantasy of hiking up her skirt and settling into his lap, pants at his knees and her panties around her ankle as his rigid length slides into her wet, slick heat, their hips meeting and receding as they thrust and want. And there's that secret thrill of risk and daring, three thousand people just outside this classroom door, stifling moans, teeth to lip and mouth to mouth to keep quiet. It's all Mikasa can do to rub her thighs together as she thinks of coming for him, with him, his hand over her mouth as their hips buck, and shudder, and quiver.

"But Sasha just dropped off some casserole, so you're welcome to that if you don't feel like cooking tonight," she continues. Can he hear the breathlessness in her voice? She wants desperately to be rid of this ache between her legs, and the end of the day cannot come sooner.

"Thanks," he says, his thumbs daring to caress just a centimeter higher. "I'm actually going over to Armin's tonight. They need an extra hand over there."

"Is everything all right?"

Eren shrugs. "He's comfortable, which is what matters most. I'm just worried about Armin."

Mikasa nods her head. She's worried for Armin, too. She rarely sees him around school these days, and when she does, he always appears beaten down. Nothing unexpected, all things considering, but still. Worrisome. She vocalizes this to Eren, tells him she agrees.

"I'm sorry," he says, standing—and normal is restored, as now he looks down to meet her gaze—and brushing a strand of hair from her face. "I didn't mean to be such a downer. I'm glad you're going out with Sasha tonight."

Hurriedly assuring him that he had absolutely nothing to apologize for, that he'd done nothing wrong, Mikasa lifts her chin instinctively when he leans in to kiss her.

It starts out chaste: four kisses, all soft, and all lips. And she could live off of just this: just the simple warmth of his touch the image of his brown eye lashes catching in the sun—this is all she needs to survive. But she has no complaints when his tongue slips between her lips, or when his hands start to slide beneath the hem of her skirt.

"We shouldn't," she feebly protests.

"'What's the use of a great city having temptations if fellows don't yield to them?'" Eren quotes as he lets her rise to her feet—a move that renders little improvement as they're close, front to front, her hips pressed square against his. And she can feel him through the fabric, hard and stiff.

"But I appreciate," Mikasa says, her heart pounding in more places than one, "that we were thinking the same thing," and to indicate what she means, she presses her hips against his.

He sighs a long sigh, and she loves it—testing his control. "Really?" he says back. And like two dancers, he takes a step forward and she takes a step back, and just like that, she's caught in the middle of him and his desk (it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "caught between a rock and a hard place"). "Because I was thinking," his breath is hot against her neck when he whispers in her ear, "of laying you down across this desk, and tasting you."

Mikasa takes a shuddering breath, her eyes fluttering as she pictures it.

"But like you said, we shouldn't," he says, disappointment ringing in his voice.

"We shouldn't." Mikasa repeats, for herself more than anyone else. "I should go," she says, giving a final tug to his tie before heading out the door. She doesn't have to look back to know that he's watching.

**. . . . .**

"How'd you hear about this place again?" Mikasa asks as she picks up a roll with her chopsticks, popping it into her mouth.

"One of my restaurant management students gave me the low down," Sasha replies. "It's good, right?"

It _is _good. The food is good quality, the ingredients fresh, and the presentation clean and elegant, and everything quite inexpensive to boot! Mikasa orders the tuna and salmon sashimi, and a single roll of a yellowtail and tuna combo topped with avocado. Sasha samples a bit of everything with the dinner boat, making sure not to skip out on a side of fried rice and the house salad. She enjoys dining with Sasha. With her, there's no expectation to hold conversation. She doesn't have to struggle to find something to contribute, or multitask with enjoying her meal and remaining an attentive listener. With Sasha, there is only the food, and the appreciation of it.

After they finish their meal, they head out to the parking lot and prepare to go their own separate ways.

"Hey, isn't that Yeager's car?" Sasha asks.

Mikasa nods her head. "I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it here with a nearly empty tank, and we're neighbors, so he let me borrow his." she explains.

To her surprise, Sasha doubles over laughing, arms wrapped around her stomach as her shoulders violently shake. "So _that's_ why you guys carpool every day?" she asks, gasping, "Because you're _neighbors_?"

Mikasa nods again, and she feels herself turning pink.

"Oh my god," Sasha continues, now squatting down as a feeble attempt to keep herself from falling over. "And to think we all thought you two were _sleeping_ together. Oh my _god_."

"'_We_?"

Beginning to recover, Sasha sighs, wiping a tear from her eye. "Oh, you know how us teachers are. We're just as bad as the kids when it comes to gossip—even worse, in my opinion. Ah, shit. This means I owe Connie twenty-five bucks now."

They bid each other a goodnight, and a see you tomorrow, and head home. And though she's escaped discovery, the entire way back, Mikasa's fingers drum on the steering wheel independently of the music. Have they really been that transparent? is it really that easy to see? Mikasa runs through all of their public interactions over the past few months. They've never had an explicit conversation about the nature of their relationship, but there has always been unspoken rules that they had a mutual, unspoken understanding about. They made sure to never stand too close, or touch too long, were careful to never look at the other in a way to suggest any sort of life outside of school, or speak in a way that revealed some underlying want. But perhaps over time they've grown too accustomed, too comfortable, too oblivious to certain behaviors and mannerisms, behaviors and mannerisms much too clear for the outside eye to pick up on. Could the others see it when they brushed calf and ankle beneath the table at lunch? When they prepared the other's coffee without hesitation or uncertainty?

But something greater troubles her. If they could see that part of them even before they even became physically intimate. What other rumors could be flying through the corridors of that school? What other narratives, what other speculations spin around without them knowing? Do they think it's more than just the occasional fuck between friends? Is this all more than an occasional fuck between friends? And is there more to what she feels than what she's allowed herself to believe? Has she surrendered more control than she initially intended?

Her heart pounds so fast it makes her dizzy, and she has to pull over to compose herself, temple in her hands when she realizes that this is the word they use to describe a certain sort of gravity, the word for the curve of a certain kind of smile, the shape hands take when laced together. Mikasa can recall only one instance more terrifying than this moment, but this time, the gunshots have gone off so quietly she never heard them ring. And this time, there is no bed to hide under, no stuffed rabbit to hold on to. She didn't expect it to be this way—so disarming, so frightening—but it is, and she doesn't want to go back home and face him, can't bear to face what it is she feels. Loving someone is a burden she doesn't know how to shoulder, is, perhaps, a burden too heavy for someone who's seen the worst side of this world, who anticipates the inevitable loss with every gain.

In the end, she drives. Aimlessly, like a wandering fly trapped indoors, she drives late into the night until her eyes begin to droop and it feels as if she's run out of road to travel, and without knowing it, she's back on the road headed towards home, defeat weighing over her head. Because she can't make his car her getaway vehicle—it smells too much like him, but not enough that she feels at ease, the temptation to stay too great. And really, there's no running from this, no escaping what lives inside her.

She doesn't expect him to wait up for her, but when she slips through the front door, there he is, sitting on the couch, forearms on his knees, surrounded by his things packed up into two bags.

"What's going on—did something happen to the Arlerts?" she asks, mind jumping to the worst of assumptions.

Eren shakes his head and stands. "No," he replies, "it's not that." They stand but a few feet away—if they both reached out their hands, perhaps they could touch—but somehow he feels so far away. "It's my heater. Hannes finally fixed it. I can move back now."

Her throat goes dry, and her head begins to hurt just like it did earlier in the car, and she doesn't understand why. "I didn't know Hannes had gotten back," she manages.

"Neither did I," he says.

The air sits anticipatory between them, the very night waiting for her to say something back. She feels it. She knows he feels it too, watching as he gathers his things slowly, without looking at her, as if to give her time to say what they both know needs to be said. And she wants to say it, too. _Stay with me. Unpack your bags and stay._ But she can't. She can't, because there's something else sitting in her throat: a confessional on her tongue, a declaration of love between her teeth. _Unpack your bags and stay. I love you. Please, please, stay with me. _And he's seen her in only skin, bare, naked before him, but this...this is too vulnerable. This is too raw. And Mikasa just can't do it.

Paralyzed, she can only watch as he takes slow steps towards her, and the door behind her, his eyes averted until he stands before her. Eren pauses as if to lean in and kiss her, and she wants him too, she needs to feel his lips on her own once more before they return to the before, his mouth just inches away from hers, but he only sighs softly and then says, "Guess this means I'm finally out of your hair," and his fingers brush her hair as he passes her.

She vaguely hears him say a good night, and a see you tomorrow, but all of it is drowned out by the sound of the door closing behind him.

The kitchen faucet has a leak again, the intermittent drops of water plinking into the sink basin, the sharp hollowness of the sound echoing throughout the apartment. And it's a strange sort of thing: how emptiness fills emptiness. Mikasa stands there, unmoving, wondering if her apartment has always been so silent, wondering how she never noticed how spacious this apartment is—so vast, too vast, it could swallow her whole.

She has to distract herself, can't keep waiting for the click of the door opening, of familiar footsteps across the floor that will never come, but the laundry's been folded and neatly put away the sink already cleaned; Mikasa runs her hands across the spotless countertops and imagines him here hours ago, watches as this phantom of her mind in anticipation of the approaching end, scrubs clean the apartment to purge it from his presence, erasing his touch from every surface. Perhaps he thought that maybe, if he removed every trace of his shadow from this place it'd be easier to slip away, easier to pretend none of it happened. All he leaves behind is an envelope with a check for two months worth of rent. That's all any of this was, isn't it? Two months rent. Monetal, measurable, finite. A simple transaction.

Somehow, Mikasa finds herself lying in bed, curled to the left side—his side—inhabiting the space where his body left its imprint. And she tells herself that this is fine. This is what she wanted. She wanted to run, and now she doesn't have to. But the other side of the wall is silent, and the bed's too big for just one person, and she tosses and turns to the echoes of the words unsaid: _Stay with me. I love you. Please, please stay. _And somehow, over the course of two months, she has forgotten how to fall asleep alone.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Thank you guys, so much, for your patience. I've got about three weeks left of my first semester of college, and I've quite literally written upwards of fifteen papers, leaving very little time to take on my own independent projects. I've gotta say, after all that's happened this semester, this particular chapter hits incredibly close to home. This is probably one of the first times I could draw from personal experience to move along the plot.**

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**15\. WHAT IF WE SAID WHAT WE FELT FOR A CHANGE?**

All he can think about these days, is Van Gogh's study of pairs in his three versions of _The Bedroom_. Two doors, two chairs, two pillows, a set for each window pane, a set for each hanging picture. Pairs and sets. Partners and companions. It's strange seeing the world in singles again: only one toothbrush at the sink, just one plate set out at dinner, one coffee cup, one towel, one body lying in bed. One person by themselves in one cavernous apartment.

It had all been going so well. He thought, for a while there, that maybe she felt the same as he did, but then again he's always been a bad judge of time-so quick to assume forever. You'd think that after all these years—after all that's happened—he'd understand by now. But maybe this is more a matter of acceptance than it is of comprehension. For his body felt that approaching abandonment long before he heard her deafening silence; driven to pack his things in a half conscious daze, sleepwalking through the rooms and halls as he erased every trace of himself. He wonders—had his father felt this way before he left? This disconnectedness as he packed his life away into a bag or two, his physical existence condensed in two finite containers. She hadn't said a word. Not even a goodbye.

It's well passed midnight. A stack of papers sits untouched on the kitchen counter, and his cold tea goes untouched. And he used to be so good at being alone, but now he misses the shared space—misses the sounds, the smells, the sights, all of it. And it terrifies him. It terrifies him, because something tells him that he misses her more than she misses him. It all causes such a racket in his skull, and he was never much good at falling asleep, but somehow he's gotten so much worse.

"What do you mean?" she'd replied with a question when he asked her if everything was all right this morning in the car.

"I don't know," Eren struggled. "Things just seem...off. Between us." Commercials run on the radio, indistinct voices, static inflection. The the world outside passes by in an unintelligible whir.

Mikasa shrugs. "I'm fine. Are you fine?"

He believed her, in that moment. Everything was fine. This distance between them, this recent, impassible wall—perhaps it had all been in his head. Perhaps it's always just been in his head. And yet it had been ages since they last touched, days completely absent of even the brush of an idle hand against the fabric of her coat, ages since the conversation between them didn't weigh heavy, didn't drag. "Yeah," he said. "I'm fine." Her eyes never left the front window.

His hands reach for a vinyl—he doesn't care which one—and he throws it on the record player for sake of hearing something other than his own thoughts. Something bitter inside whispers to turn it up too loud, to blast the sound through the walls in some juvenile attempt to bring her and her angry acknowledgement banging at his door. He almost does. Almost.

Instead he lets the music, just loud enough, drown out that noise too, lets the music bury the sound of the ticking clock, hands spinning round, and round, and round.

**. . . . .**

At the very least, she has work keeping her busy. Tests to grade, lab reports to look over, students to meet with, faculty meetings to attend, she's always considered herself a passionate educator, but this is overzealous—she even begins an additional project to the dismay of her environmental studies students. Of course they notice the way she speaks so much more animatedly during lectures, notice how their assignments get returned to them in nearly half the usual time. "You're not the only ones excited for Spring Break," she tells them. Though perhaps this is more dread than excitement.

Her students chatter about break plans throughout today's lesson (it's the week before, what else would she expect?) and she catches snippets of plans for out of state, a few for out of country; the ones staying in town plan get togethers, cramming in activities of all sorts into the span of only seven days. She reminds them to turn in their assignments before the week is out. "So you can enjoy your break without having to worry about it," she says. And so I can enjoy mine.

"What about you, Ms. Ackerman?" one of her students asks, half out of curiosity, half out of the intention of delaying class. "What are you plans for break?"

"Grading all of these," she replies, giving a loving pat to a monstrous stack of papers at the front lab table. "I'm looking quite forward to it. But enough about break. Back to hydroelectricity."

The collective groan afterwards arrives right on cue.

Mikasa continues her lecture. But like her students, even she can't keep spring break off her mind, and with each glance to the stack of papers on the lab table, the pile seems to grow thinner and thinner. The thought of sitting around for an entire week—idleness has never seemed more daunting. Mikasa thinks about her car keys sitting in her coat pocket, thinks of driving, driving anywhere, anywhere to get away from this trap spun round the perimeter of this town. She could do it. Drive aimlessly for days. It wouldn't take much. A week of clothes, money for food—just her and the road. Mikasa hesitates. The dream before her comes to a halt. When did she become so afraid of being alone?

"I'm visiting my parent's farm," Sasha says when Mikasa asks her if she's staying in town.

"Same!" Connie chimes in. "My parents farm—not hers."

"That sounds nice," Mikasa replies.

Sasha and Connie both look at one another and grimace before looking back at her.

"It's eh."

"They like to use my visit as an excuse to put me to work, actually."

"So much horse poop shoveling."

"But my mom makes a _great_ cherry pie."

"And mine makes a stellar peach cobbler."

"So I guess it's worth it. How about you, Mikasa?"

Mikasa shrugs. "I'll probably stay around here, I guess. I haven't given it much thought."

"You're so lucky," Sasha sighs. "What I wouldn't give to just lie around the house for a week. Doing nothing sounds amazing!"

"I guess it does," Mikasa says. Perhaps she could take the train into the city. Though a far cry from a city person, the science museum is highly praised, and she hasn't been to the art institute in ages. Yes, a day trip to the city seems rather quite nice.

And then Connie asks: "What about Eren?"

"What about him?" Mikasa responds a hair too fast, and both Connie and Sasha—they hear it too. How could anyone miss the defensiveness lacing each word, or the embarrassment etched so clearly across her face? Surely, they must know everything, know what they said—or didn't say—to each other that night, noticed something off in the way they talk to each other, move past each other, careful never to touch.

"What are his plans for break?"

Mikasa hesitates. "I actually don't know."

"Oh," is all Connie says back.

No one says it out loud, but it's one of those things the silence implies. And she agrees. Why hasn't she asked? Out of all people, she should know, shouldn't she?

"Well," Sasha says, "You've still got a few days to figure it out."

"I suppose so. When do you two leave?"

"Right after school lets out on Friday."

"Saturday morning. And I don't think either of us gets back until Sunday. Right, Sasha?"

"I think you mean escape, but yeah, sorry, Mikasa."

"No, that's all right. I hope you two enjoy your breaks."

"You know, Connie and I were actually going to grab dinner tonight. You should join us!"

"I don't want to intrude—"

"You won't be! Come on, it'll be a good stress reliever from all that work you've been doing. Besides, this is to make up for not being here during break."

Her phone buzzes against her thigh, and Sasha and Connie shoo away her apologies, turning to their own phones in the same minute. She doesn't need to glance at the sender to know who it is.

_Mind waiting 5min before heading home? _

It's a strange thing: the urgent need to avoid the very thing you desperately want. But that's how the days pass—not saying the words that ache to be said, not confronting what lies just outside her door. It seemed nonsensical at first, avoiding him, avoiding that part of herself, but you run from desire for the same reason you run from forest fires. Both would never hesitate to swallow you whole.

Mikasa looks back up. "Do you mind giving me a ride home afterwards?"

"Not if you don't mind giving me directions."

"Let me get my coat."

"Yes!" Sasha exclaims. "We'll meet you in the parking lot."

Connie and Sasha erupt into their bantering and bickering as the door shuts behind her. And Mikasa can't figure it out. First Eren, now Sasha and Connie—what could people possibly see that makes them believe there's something inside of her worth sticking around for? Sasha and Connie's laughter still rings in her ears. Had she and Eren ever been remotely like that? Simply friends, no instability, no tumultuousness? Lately, she wonders if there are just some people meant to be alone in this world. Perhaps that's who she is.

Looking at her phone again, Mikasa's finger brushes the keyboard.

_Staying late. Thanks anyways. _

She hits send.

**. . . . .**

Eren had nearly forgotten about it. Running his hands over the worn cover, his fingers leaf through the pages another countless time. It's really easy, as an English teacher, to get wrapped up in the potential metaphors, to fabricate a narrative around your life where your pain actually _means _something, where every storm is an omen, every relic left behind a symbol. This book is not a metaphor. There is no letter addressed to him tucked within the pages, no secret message scrawled onto the the back cover. It is only a book, forgotten by Grisha Yeager when he left. Left behind with a wife and son. If anything, this is a testament to love. A testament to how people leave but love stays—and that's what makes it hurt.

God, he has to get out of this place. Removing his hands from his temples, he jumps up, snatching his coat from off his bedroom floor. He struggles into a pair of shoes, stumbling as he opens the front door. Eren comes face to face with a pair of loafers that he recognizes from his car passenger seat, and groggy mornings coming to. The loafers take a half step back

"Sorry," Mikasa says. She holds up a bag—he wonders if she notices that it's the same one he dropped off her clothes in all those months ago—in front of her as if to put something between herself and him. "I was doing my wash and I found one of your shirts. I was just returning it."

"Thanks," Eren says. Their fingers do not touch as they exchange the bag. She's wearing the same clothes she was earlier today: that blouse that complements the traces of brown in her hair, those gray stockings, that skirt whose fabric he wants desperately to hold between his hands. Eren realizes that he's staring. "Sorry," he mumbles.

Mikasa shakes her head, and she looks as if she's about to say something, lips parting and then closing as she thinks herself out of whatever it is that sits on her tongue. She takes a hesitant half step forward, the shadows on her face shifting in the glow of the yellow light.

"Will you come in for some tea?" Eren breaks the silence.

Mikasa nods her head, and he can taste his own heart beating in the back of his throat as she moves from the glow of the yellow porch light inside. And it all feels so familiar.

"Going somewhere?" Mikasa gestures to the suitcase sitting in the living room. She shrugs off her jacket and takes his for him too. Heading straight for the kitchen, he looks back over his shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm going seaside with Armin and his grandpa for break. What sort of tea do you want?"

"Something decaf. Do you still have that lemon hibiscus?"

He does. His fingers tingle as he heats the water, acutely aware of her figure leaning against the counter a mere few feet away. She thanks him when he passes over her mug, her lips reminding him of a budding flower as they blow cool air over the top of the steaming cup. They both take a synchronized sip.

"Steinbeck?" Mikasa's fingers find the stack of essays. She laughs softly, and those bright eyes turn to him. "Have you really been lending me the same books off of your curriculum list?"

"To my credit, I haven't made you write any of the essays."

"Putting me on the same reading level as your freshmen. I'm offended."

"To your credit, your discussion skills are much better than theirs."

She tilts her head to the side. Her eyes widen with realization and then turn to him with mock pointedness. "That time at the grocery store. You were evaluating my rhetorical analysis of _Kite Runner_."

"And you pulled off a solid B plus—vast improvement from the Vonnegut one."

Mikasa takes a long drink of her tea, her eyes never leaving Eren. He doesn't miss the way her tongue sweeps across her lips before she speaks. "You're the worst."

"Careful, now you're _really_ starting to sound like my freshmen." That draws a laugh. And it feels as if nothing's changed, as if they're still the same as they were a couple weeks ago, and after this they'll head off to bed together. Eren wonders if she feels it too. How could she not?

As if reading his mind, she half smiles half sighs, rising to rinse her empty mug in the sink. The faintest tint of her lipstick stains the porcelain, and Eren watches it disappear under a rush of tap water.

Heading towards the door, she turns to face him. "This was nice," Mikasa says. Looking down, she bites her lips, the toe of her shoe tapping on the floor. "It's strange not seeing you around."

"Yeah," Eren agrees.

"Things have been more hectic than usual."

"School's been busy."

"That pre-spring break pile-up"

"And I've been driving back and forth between here and Armin's."

"There's just not enough hours in the day."

And then she says: "You never stop by."

"You never ask."

They kiss. And it's hungry, and impatient, long overdue, it's a kiss that's been waiting since the night he moved out. The sort of kiss that always tastes like something more. And god sometimes something feels so good it hurts. His lips find the tip of her nose, her cheeks, trail down her neck to that spot he knows she likes and that he loves for that very reason, feeling the sigh resonate through her skin. They kiss on the lips again, and he's so caught up in how simply being near her quiets the noise inside his head, makes home feel like home again, that he doesn't notice when her hands fall away from his neck, doesn't notice her lips frozen against his until her fingers reach up to separate his mouth from hers.

"I had better be heading back," she whispers. "It's getting late."

And now it's his turn to ask her to stay. Stay here for tonight, and we'll wake up tomorrow just like we used to. Don't tell me you've forgotten how, Eren wants to say. Because I haven't. Not yet. I don't ever want to. But Eren doesn't say a word. He lets his hands fall away from her body, lets her part, and walk towards the door, and this is how it must feel to be waves reaching for the moon, because there are tides in his chest and they're crashing against his rib cage with every beat of his heart. He watches her leave, and his own silence swallows him whole.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: ****So I really have no excuse for not getting this to you guys sooner (since I literally had a month long break) other than school just left me so incredibly tired and worn out. But hey! It's here now! And we're almost at the end!**

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**16\. LONESOME NO MORE?**

Standing where the waves meet the land, the salty foam rushes over his bare feet, a great rush as it flows over him, past his ankles, and receding like a sigh, pulling the land out from beneath his toes. Eren inhales deep, the sun beating down, hot, fresh, against his skin, the wind pulling at the fabric of his search. And looking out into the sea where water meets surf, where the beach stretches out on either side of him forever and ever, it's hard not to believe that all of time and space begins and ends right beneath his feet.

How long has he been standing here? Minutes? Hours? Years? Perhaps nothing from the past year has actually happened, and he's just only opened his eyes from a dream, a very long, and very deep sleep. A sea of dark hair, pink lips at his jaw, the sharpness of collarbone edge in the morning light, the softness of skin where they meet, and if he took one of the shells laying out upon the sand, and put it to his ear, he is sure that inside he'd hear her voice.

He came here with his parents once, a very long time ago. Plastic floatie around his waist, he must've been only four or five, for his parents could still swing him from his arms between the two of them. Eren remembers running into a flock of seagulls, whooping and hollering, sending the birds upwards in a rush of feathers; squatting on the rocks, his mother calling words of caution out, to peer into the tide pools, small hands venturing out to touch the spines of the urchins, and the gelatinous tops of the jellyfish, floating like ghosts among the anemone and algae.

A wave rushes up, swallowing the small crab scuttling at the edge of the foam. The gulls cry overhead. Eren heads back the way he came, following the ghosts of his own footprints in the sand.

He finds them soon enough, two umbrellas sticking out of the sand like strange trees on the beach. Beneath a pair of sunglasses and a straw hat, Armin sleeps in the shade, lips parted and vulnerable to a gust of sand laced wind. Eren plucks Armin's fallen book from the ground, and shakes it clean, laying it at Armin's feet.

"I haven't seen him sleep this well in weeks," Mr. Arlert says from beneath the adjacent umbrella. He finishes a line of the letter he's working on and caps his pen. "How was your walk?" he asks.

"Crowded on the south end, but towards the north it's much better. Quieter."

"You've become such a recluse with age," he smiles.

Eren returns the grin. "I don't know about that, old man. I think I've always preferred being on my own."

"So long as you're happy." And to that, Eren doesn't know what to say. Mr. Arlert sees it. The waves beat on against the shore, and Eren counts the seconds in between. The two men watch as the foam spills out onto the sand. "You know, when you get to be my age, inevitably, you experience quite a bit. You watch yourself and your best friends grow old, see a lot of final days, live through a lot of final moments," he looks over at Armin. "And you see a lot of beginnings too.

"If there's anything all this watching life constantly starting and ending all at once has taught me, it's that humans need each other. We need each other, and we need others to need us too."

Eren half chuckles, wiping sand that's been blown into his eyes. The sun behind his companion, he can hardly squint into the light. Instead, Eren looks out into the waves, watching himself play at the edge of the sand. He runs out, yellow floatie abandoned by his mother's side, chasing after a red pail running away with the water, wading out, fingers outstretched for the handle, he inches closer and closer, bobbing above the surface of the water, he balances on tiptoe, neck craned upwards. With one last stretch, his hands curl round the pail. He gives a triumphant cry, only for his mouth to fill with saltwater. And suddenly, his feet slip out from beneath him into the drop off, and his head goes under. "Where is this all coming from, old man?"

"Eren," Armin's grandfather looks at him with eyes unwavering and blazing, and for a moment, Eren forgets he is talking to a dying man. "Don't shut people out because you're afraid of your own pain."

Who was it that had saved him all those years ago? And why can't he remember? He recalls the water churning above him, looking up to see the glint of the sun broken up into a mosaic, his burning lungs, his blackening vision, the silence surrounding him, swallowing him…

"You boys—you have to take care of one another after I'm gone," the old man's voice doesn't waver.

"Of course. Of course we will," Eren means it.

Armin still sleeps, blonde hair almost glowing white in the sun, soft breath coming and going with the sighs of the ocean waves. There are definite traces of the old man in his grandson—one's he'd noticed before, but emerge stronger in the pureness of the light—the bright blue eyes, the slope of the nose.

And Eren thinks of his father's book stowed away beneath his bed, sleepless nights spent lying awake to the whisper of the record player. He can't remember the last time he visited his mother's memorial. Don't shut people out because you're afraid of your own pain. And Eren's afraid that a part of him understands exactly what Grandfather Arlert means.

**. . . . .**

Eren Yeager hates the smell of lilies. Actually, he dislikes the sight of all cut flowers indoors, but it's lilies he hates the most. Their overpowering sweetness reeks, it overwhelms, comes always with the accompaniment of hushed voices struggling to find words, reminds him much too well of funeral homes.

Lilies, and chrysanthemums, and carnations, and roses, just put something nice together, he and Armin told the florist, anything, whatever you like, but make it feel alive. They spend the most on flowers. Perhaps too much. For a moment, Eren thinks he could mistake this funeral home for a greenhouse. But cut flowers are cut flowers no matter how beautiful they are, no matter how you arrange them. And he suffocates in their scent, surrounded by hundreds of stars dying where they stand.

He and Armin attended to the rest of the arrangements as if sleepwalking, follow the directions left so carefully by Grandfather Arlert, call the numbers written at the bottom page, the local funeral home, the family plot, an old friend who caters, the few living relatives and friends, the lawyer to settle estates. They dress him like he asked, in his favorite dark green sweater, his hands placed over his stomach in the same way he used to take his afternoon naps. Armin picks out the photos. Eren can't bring himself to look.

He and Armin stand beside the casket alongside a portrait of Armin's late great-uncle and grandmother, greeting distant relatives and old friends whom Eren either hardly remembers or doesn't recognize. He shuffles uncomfortably in his suit, tugging at the collar, and wrestling with the cuffs, as he receives vague nods of recognition and empty handshakes, steps aside to let Armin greet them. He remembers once again that even though his grandfather lies in that casket and his brother stands beside him, that he is not family to these people. (And people are not puzzle pieces. Not everyone has a place where they fit.)

The flowers, the hushed voices, the uncomfortable suit—he is at his mother's funeral again. He's at his mother's funeral, there are lilies, and he is fifteen. He is fifteen, and trying not to cry, and trying not to think about how his mother still wore her wedding ring to the day she died, about how his father isn't standing next to him where he belongs. He is trying not to overhear the whispers of the relatives who move like water past him. _Not even here for the funeral. Maybe he's gone and eloped with some other girl. Can't say I'd be surprised. _

And he is kneeling in front of his mother's casket, wishing he were better at goodbyes, and wishing he believed in a god because he is the only one left in this funeral parlor, and god, why is he always the only one left? And then there's a hand on his shoulder, firm yet gentle, pulling him into an embrace. "Eren," Mr. Arlert says, "Come on, son. Let's go home."

He is fifteen again, standing with Armin at their grandfather's funeral, and where do you go when you've lost the roof to the house and the rain falls heavy, full with every lead bullet fired into the sky? _Eren. Eren, let's go home. Eren. _

"Eren."

He looks up. It doesn't feel real seeing her here. He wonders if he's dreamed her up in front of him, in that plain black dress that falls just above her knees and her hair swept back into some sort of braid. There's something else too—something in her dark eyes, something like a shawl cast over her shoulders, the way she looks as if she were born from lilies and empty handshakes. He can smell it on her perfume when she leans in, hesitant, arms wrapping around his neck—recognizes it as the tired people wear when they've lost too many, knows that he and Armin wear it too.

"I'm sorry," Mikasa says, the heat of her breath stealing across the skin of his neck. And grief has a way of erasing all caution, for in this embrace, his arms wrap tight around her with no regard for prior hesitations, hands falling on the curve of her hip, the sharp edge of her shoulder, while her fingers brush his hair, rub the smallest of circles into the fabric of his suit.

_Let's go home_. There is an ease that comes with being wrapped in her arms, an ease he thought he'd long forgotten. But her body against him—it's like hearing the melody of a song from a very, very long time ago. He forgot how warm she was. Grief makes one feel so undeserving of happiness, and it feels so wrong, being so in love with her, praying she could be in love with him too, here, now. But god, he needs this. He needs this more than ever.

They part, bodies falling away from one another with a sigh, and for the first time in a long while their eyes meet, and neither one of them looks away.

"Your papers," she finally says. "I picked them up from the sub and dropped them off using the key you left me. They're sitting on your kitchen counter just like you asked."

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

Her hand still rests in his, and it hurts when it finally leaves. And then she hugs Armin, brief, but with the same softness and empathy, pays her respects to Armin's grandfather. Mikasa looks back once more as she leaves. Eren realizes how tired he is of watching people go.

**. . . . .**

It's been odd, sleeping in his old bed again. With Armin just a few steps down the hall, it's as if they're back in high school; he looks at the clock: 2:00 AM. He could never sleep back then either, the light from his room escaping underneath the crack of the door and into the hallway during the latest hours of the night.

All his things are still here: old band posters on the wall, books collecting dust on the shelves and desk, though it looks as if someone's taken the time to frame and hang his high school diploma—right next to a picture of him and Armin after the ceremony. His old jacket still hangs in the closet, right where he left it. He snuck out that window countless times, stashed a fifth in that spot, and—wait a second. Eren jumps up from his bed, crossing over to the closet, he clears away a space and pulls at the floorboard, wiggling it so it comes loose in his hand. Reaching inside, he grins, as he pulls out a flask, almost laughing when he shakes it and he hears liquid inside. Eren knocks back the shot and a half of cheap vodka inside before returning to the nook in the floor.

Old journals, unfinished stories, angsty poetry—it's all here. Melancholic poetry he'd once been so proud of, just absolutely reeking of melodrama, Eren laughs, knowing exactly the type of student he had been back in high school and exactly the reaction he had garnered from his teachers. It's been a long time since he's tried to write anything. For good reason, too. He sucked.

Everything he wrote was so contrived, so melodramatic and purple prosed, all unfortunate ending, protagonist broken but beautiful, all dark and stormy night. But it helped. All teenage angst and melodrama aside, it helped. The poetry, the stories—they restored a sense of meaning to otherwise meaningless sadness, made it something less grotesque and almost beautiful, and god, we need these lies. We need these lies more than anything.

Digging further into the nook, he finds a couple pens, a pad of paper. He taps the pen against his knee, looking around the room (as if someone other than himself were present, judging him) he wishes there'd been a little bit more in the flask. He clicks the pen once, twice, and then once more…

When he wakes the next day, he finds himself lying on the carpet, crumpled scraps of paper strewn about around his head, and the pad of paper somehow lodged between his shoulders. Eren dabbles with the idea of actually climbing into bed and continuing to sleep, but upon checking the time, he groans, and forces himself up.

Armin greets him from the living room as he hears him coming down the stairs. "Afternoon," he says.

"Good morning to you too."

"You'll have to reheat it, but I brewed some coffee for you. It's sitting on the stove."

Eren thanks him. "What better way to start the morning!" He calls from the kitchen.

"It's almost 12:30!" Armin calls back.

Picturing Armin's semi-horrified face just from the way his voice sounds, Eren laughs. "It's eight in the morning somewhere," he says, taking a seat next to Armin on the couch. "What've you been up to?"

Armin shrugs, "Been trying to get some grading done," he gestures to the stack of papers sitting in his lap. "Hasn't been too productive, I'm afraid."

"Give yourself time. You'll get there."

"I know," Armin says, staring into his cup of tea. "And I think that's what scares me most. It feels so strange without him around, and the fact that one day I'll get used to it...I don't know." He's silent for a while, and Eren struggles for words. He's gone through this. He should know what to say, how to say it. But it's Armin who finally speaks: "Would you, I don't know, want to move back in? Mortgage has been paid off for years, so we'd just need to take care of water, and electric, and those things. And I just can't bring myself to sell this place, you know?"

"Oh wow. Move back here...I never even thought about that...I...wow."

"You're right, I'm sorry. You've already got your own place, and I don't know why I thought—"

"Are you kidding me? You've _seen _my place. It's falling apart, maintenance takes forever, the walls are incredibly thin. It's just…"

Armin hesitates. "Is it Mikasa?"

Eren nearly spills his coffee. "What are you talking about?" he stammers. he feels his face growing red, and knows he's already betrayed himself.

"Eren," Armin says. "I've known for quite a long time."

"God, were we really that obvious?"

"I mean, I don't know if _obvious_ is the right word—easy to pick up on, maybe?" a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

"You literally _just_ gave me the dictionary definition of obvious!" Eren holds his head in his hands. "Oh god. Does the rest of the faculty know too?"

"I mean, I think there was speculation, but know one actually, you know, _knew_."

Armin's in full grin and Eren in full grimace. "Relax. You're such a drama queen," he laughs. "I mean, how serious was it? Wait, oh gosh, was it serious?"

Eren sighs, reclining on the couch. "I mean, whatever it was, it's kind of over now."

"You guys broke up."

"Yeah."

"And you still care about her."

Eren doesn't answer. What else is there to say? Moving in with Armin. It'd be nice, living together again. Just like back then. The only drawback of moving in is moving away, and a voice inside his head whispers how packing up the apartment means severing that cord, closing that particular door for good, and in some ways, it's so much harder letting go of someone who isn't dead.

For the first time in forever, Eren finally has a chance to lay the foundation for a home—he just doesn't know where. To stay, to leave. Abandon one, abandon the other (she's still his friend after all, right?). To go back, and settle down in the bones of his childhood, or to stay, and forge anew in uncertain land.

"Look, you don't have to make a decision now," Armin says, collecting his empty cup and heading back to the kitchen, "The offer will always be here. I consider this house to be just as much yours as it is mine."


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: I have 0 excuses for not updating earlier. *throws flowers in the air* We're in the home stretch! One last chapter after this! **

* * *

**17\. I LIKE YOU, YOU LIKE ME...SHOULDN'T THIS BE EASY? **

She only remembers seeing her parents fight once in her childhood. She can't remember exactly over what—something about her mother's family, something behind closed doors not meant for young children to hear. After all, young children aren't meant to see their parents argue. Theirs is the world of the idyllic black and white, of the illogical just and resolute where the virtuous flourish and those less than meet their match. There are good people and there are bad people. There are problems and there are solutions. Adversity, and always resolution.

On that day long ago, she stood down the hallway from that closed bedroom door, trying not to listen, trying to make sense of the hushed yet biting voices, the unfamiliar tones of opposition. Something about her mother's family. Something about theirs. She chewed on the edge of her stuffed rabbit, switched to her own nails when that wasn't enough.

Door flying open, she once witnessed a brick flying through the window of her city apartment. She remembers getting caught, she and her father locking eyes, remembers how as the first tears fell he was immediately there, his arms encompassing her like a flower blooming in reverse, felt her mother's touch soon after.

"You're not going to lose us," they assured her. And their voices were theirs again, not the urgent and scraping voices from behind closed doors. "You'll never lose us."

Paying for the flowers, Mikasa thanks the woman at the counter of the flower shop, hesitating before picking out and paying for a triad of roses. _Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself_. Eren had been so insistent she read that one. It had taken her over a month to get through. The prose had been so difficult to get through—flowing seamlessly from past, to present, to future, from fantasy to reality, sometimes you found yourself in one character's head without remembering when you left the last. And Mrs. Dalloway had just been so _lonely_, almost unlikeable in her desperation to be liked. It had been another unhappy ending. Mikasa remembers asking Eren after finishing _Mrs. Dalloway_ why he'd only ever recommend her stories that ended unhappily, why the main character always ended up alone. He had apologized. Said he hadn't even noticed.

Mikasa exits the store, climbs into her car. The drive to the cemetery is automatic, her mind disappearing for fifteen minutes while her hands drag her car and the body to the gates, tapping her on the shoulder to wake her up. She finds herself before her parents' graves, switches out the old bouquets for the new ones. Back when she had just gotten out of college, and money had been tight, she used to cut flowers from store displays—just a few here and there, never terribly noticeable—whenever she goes back to the bakery she used to make use of, the old woman at the counter always gives her a genuine crescent moon smile. Mikasa always tips more than perhaps she ought to.

Rising, Mikasa brushes off the dirt from her knees, looks down at the ground, her parents' graves, the flowers she bought just this morning, the old flowers from last week in her hands. Today is the anniversary of the start of it all. She has been laying flowers at the feet of sleeping headstones for fifteen years now. It hits her that once she's gone, there will be no one left to carry on this ritual of hers, and the tears sting at the corners of her eyes. She decided a long time ago when she was contemplating whether she wanted to be cremated or not, that she'd either be buried or have her ashes in the same plot as her parents. She always figured that if she dies alone, she may as well be laid to rest in company.

Summer is coming. It's in the air, riding in on the air, settling in her coffee—she has so much grading to do that she has absolutely no to get started on—that telltale sluggishness, that fat cat inclination to bask in the sun. Mr. Armin's plot rests on the other side of the cemetery, but the long walk is nice, refreshing. She nestles the three roses between the other flower arrangements surrounding the headstone; the plot is well kept, perhaps Armin or Eren has been by recently.

Eren and Armin. How long has it been since she's last talked to either of them? The funeral was the last time she saw the both of them together—that was a month ago. She's talked to Armin here and there, but Eren…it's been almost a month. Finals are this coming week. She's hardly even seen him. And whenever she thinks about him she still gets that feeling in her chest that makes it hurt to breath, nags like a stomach ache at all odd hours. It all had ended so quickly. One day his mismatched socks are cluttering the bedroom floor, and the next day she's trying to readjust to sleeping alone. But that's just how life works, isn't it? She was just sitting across from Mr. Arlert yesterday. And today she's visiting his grave. But people can move on from anything eventually. She caught Armin laughing the other day with Jean. She doesn't think about Eren everytime she opens her bedroom door anymore. She doesn't stay up listening for the sound of his record player going at odd hours. She is independent, autonomous—living on her own is what she knows best. People can move on from anything eventually. That's just how life works.

There isn't much to clean or tidy up, and unsure of what to do with herself and feeling a bit out of place, Mikasa heads back to her car, shooting a quick one-word reply to a text message from Sasha about something rather inconsequential before driving off.

The act of driving is such white noise: tilt the wheel, flex your foot, yield, stop, go—driving away from this cemetery is the same as signing her name. Her parents are dead. Her parents are dead, and they've been dead for fifteen years, and now Mr. Arlert his dead too, and Mikasa misses her parents, she misses Mr. Arlert, and goddammit she misses Eren too. Another anniversary alone, another anniversary yet to come, and another, and another, and another. And in that moment, sitting in front of a red light at a four way intersection, as Mikasa looks back at the past fifteen years of living anniversary to anniversary, of the years spent in solitary cemetery walks, of the nights spent tossing and turning alone, in that moment, Mikasa realizes that the past fifteen years could so easily turn into the next fifteen years to come.

There are tears sliding down her cheeks and into her lap. Sitting parked at a green light, a chorus of angry car corns heckle her, and so she wipes her eyes and nose, hits her hazard lights before crossing the intersection and pulling over alongside the road. She can't remember the last time she cried. The sensation feels so foreign.

She rummages through her glove compartment for tissues, blotting at her eyes to try to salvage her mascara. He was something living, breathing, warm beneath her fingertips, and she'd spent so long chasing after ghosts that she'd forgotten the difference between feeling heat and getting burned. Living alone is what she knows best, going after him requires too much vulnerability, it's so much easier living the way she always has—all of these things are true. But god, she's a fool if she doesn't see that staying stagnant is just another way to run.

**. . . . .**

Back at the apartments, Eren drags himself and his bag of groceries up the stairs. He finally forced himself to make a trip to the store after realizing that he could no longer subsist on tap water and the molding bread in the fridge. That's what always happens whenever he gets into one of his slumps. His eating goes down the shitter, he stops doing what little cleaning around the house that he usually does. He hasn't had a real conversation with anyone in three days.

The grocery bags strain his hands, weigh down his shoulders, make it awkward to walk, and he allows himself a rest, lowering the plastic bags to the ground with a sigh, his body folding into a slouch, and then he realizes he's right in front of her door.

Without conscious thought, he raises his fist, knocks three times against the wood. A dog barks somewhere down the street, the laundry machines whir from the lower levels, Eren holds his breath. Silence persists from behind the front door.

And Eren wonders if she returned the spare key to its usual hiding spot after he gave it back to her, wonders if it's as easy as raising an arm and fumbling around for the cool metal resting on the ledge of the door frame. But something inside him wilts, the narrative fabricated in that moment—in which he throws open the door to find her right there, in which they hold each other close and admit it was a mistake to part, make love on her couch, in her bed, over and over and over again until neither of them can move and everything is right again—the narrative unravels just as quickly as it was spun. Her parking spot is empty, the milk is getting warm, the door is closed before him, and all of these are signs. Exhaling, Eren steps away, picks up the groceries in each hand, and heads to his own apartment.

Down in the parking lot, a taupe impala pulls in. Mikasa steps out of the car at the exact moment Eren's front door clicks closed behind him.


	18. Chapter 18

**Warnings: sexual content**

**A/N: **Well here it is, the last of it. Thanks for sticking with me until the end.

**18\. A HAPPY ENDING ISN'T A COP OUT**

The school year is over. Her kids have taken their AP tests, and finals are never too much of an issue to grade. She enters her students' final grades a week before they're due, and just like that, the school year is done and summer has arrived. Mikasa has never liked summer very much. She never knows exactly what to do with herself.

She sits at her kitchen table, a cup of tea in her hands. Outside the window she watches a breeze rustle the leaves on the trees. An abandoned newspaper dances down the middle of the street. Maybe she should travel. She's always wanted to visit the west coast. Or even Michigan.

From the other side of the wall, indiscernible music plays. Her chest gets tight. Yes, she'll travel this summer. Getting out of here will do her some good.

**. . . . .**

He's always hated summer. The unstructured nature of it all, never having a schedule, nothing to fill the time. He hasn't done laundry in weeks—all of it sits in a mountain in the corner. Eren sighs, closing the book he was trying to read and massaging his temples. He hasn't been able to bring himself to read a book since Mr. Arlert died. He only manages about one real meal a day.

Groaning, he lifts himself out of bed and rummages through a pile of socks and bed sheets to find his phone. Eren swears when he presses the home button only to find that it's dead. He wonders how long it's been since it died. He had it on two days ago, right? Three days ago? Plugging it into the wall, it comes to life after about five minutes. Multiple missed calls and texts from Armin pop up.

Without opening any of the messages, Eren takes that as a cue to stop moping. He grabs his towel from off the chair, and heads to the shower.

The hot water pounds against his back and his neck, and he closes his eyes, letting the droplets run from his hair down his face. Steam rises around him, and flashes of her appear before his eyes: her dark hair on her shoulders, the vibration of her humming against his chest, the quirk of a smile playing at her lips. He's never been in love before. He wonders if what they had was it. Eren splashes water in his face, tries to shake the thought from his mind.

It's hard, having her just beyond the otherside of the wall. It hurts to think about her, dream about her. They never really fell apart. But then again, they were never really together, were they? Something inside of him has always been so scared that he fell harder than her, that she meant something more to him than he meant to her.

It's not as if she's been avoiding him. They greet each other when they see each other around the apartment complex, when school was still in session. If anything, he's been more distant than she has since Mr. Arlert died. But it's not as if she's sought him out either. He remembers the night he moved back out. He would've stayed if she had asked. Even now, if she asked him to come back, he'd do it. He'd do it in a heartbeat.

Eren turns off the water, dries off, and gets dressed. Sometimes, he blasts the music at full volume in hopes that she'll knock on his door again to tell him to shut up. She never does.

Later that night he dreams of that day on the beach with Armin and the old man. And it's more memory than it is a dream, all of it so vivid—the salt laden air, the warm sand beneath his toes. He stands beside the old man, and there is a strange yet pleasant feeling in his head, an ease to his own breathing. He is at peace in this moment. He doesn't recognize the feeling at first, but it's there. Armin sleeps in his beach chair, the waves lean in and out of the shore, sun glints on the water. Next to him, the old man sighs a sigh of content, a gull cries overhead…

**. . . . .**

Mikasa leaves a thank you letter for Sasha on the counter along with directions on how much to feed the cat. She writes that she should be back in about two weeks. A full backpack slung over her shoulder, and a duffel bag in hand, she totters out the door. She'll sleep in her car. Stop in a motel every few days or so to shower. Visit some cities, some of the state parks. She doesn't really know. She'll just play it by ear. Whatever it takes to get out of here.

Just as she locks up, the door over swings open. Staring back at her is Eren, with his own backpack and duffle bag in hand. They freeze before one another, any sort of movement bound to breach some unknowable barrier. They are like two deer caught in the floodlights of a vehicle.

"Hey," Mikasa finally says. And she realizes that she'd been holding her breath.

"Hey," Eren says back. He meets her halfway, tone of voice equally as cautious.

"Headed somewhere?" she ventures, gesturing to his baggage.

"Yeah. Gonna try and enjoy the summer break. Where are you going?"

"Um," she hadn't considered that the conversation would get this far. "Anywhere. I don't know. I'm not sure yet." She feels so stupid. She feels like one of those middle aged women who goes off on an adventure to find herself, the kind of middle aged woman other middle aged women write books about.

"Oh," he says back. And if he weren't standing in the way, she would've rushed past him by now. He most definitely can tell that her face is burning. Eren shuffles his feet, scratches the back of his head. "Well I'm just planning on staying at the beach for a week or so. Come with me?"

The question takes her aback.

Eren scrambles. "I just thought if you didn't have plans—I mean obviously if you're not comfortable...Actually, you know what, just forget I said anything."

"Okay," Mikasa hears herself say.

"Huh?"

"I mean, if you're sure you don't mind me coming…" she trails off, and god, she can hardly look at him. She ducks beneath her bangs.

"Oh," she hears him exhale. "Ok cool. Um, do you need help with your bags?"

Mikasa shakes her head. Wordlessly, she follows him to his car, and packs her things into the trunk. Eren turns on the radio—"Is this okay?" he asks as he turns on the NPR station (she always chose NPR when they used to carpool). The host is interviewing a scientist of some sort. Given any other circumstance she'd be fascinated. But all Mikasa can think about is how close she is to him, how familiar the scent of his car is. _Don't look at him_, she tells herself. _Don't look at him_. But she steals a glance or two in the passenger side mirror where she watches his eyes dead set on the road. They sit without conversation, pretending to listen to the program on the air. The radio is drowned out by the violent and frantic thudding of her own heartbeat in her ears.

**. . . . . **

It's the air. It holds a certain crisp freshness to it. The air here is so much easier to breathe. Reclining into the beach folding chair, Mikasa closes her eyes, letting the warmth of the sun beat down against her skin. A tattered copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ Eren had in the trunk of his car rests in her lap. It's a quiet beach up in Michigan, half sand, half rock. Somewhere down the way, Eren wanders knee deep through the water. At one point she glanced over to see his figure stacking rocks upon rocks, towers teetering, balanced upon only itself.

There is something about the beach that makes one feel at peace. Being here Mikasa realizes she's never truly felt that before. She feels like one of those rocks that wash ashore, perfectly smooth to the touch, like holding the moon in your hand. She feels as if she could become a part of the sand.

She flips over, letting her back soak in the light. Her breathing aligns with the sighs of the waves rushing up the shore, she wonders if this is what it feels like to be caught in the eternity of a moment.

Opening her eyes at the sound of a gull, she spots him down the way, standing calf-deep in the water and staring out to sea. Her eyes travel up the muscles in his back, rake over his shoulders and arms. He mentioned once in passing that he'd come here before with Armin and his grandfather. How long has it been? A couple months at least. And she gets it—the way he withdrew into himself, the way they fell away—she gets it. Mourning takes and takes when you've already lost, it's a process that never really ends.

It's odd, being here with him. It's the closest and longest they've been in proximity to one another in months, and yet he still feels so far away. But perhaps less far away. Or, at least, he feels far away less often.

At that moment he turns to face her, and his eyes find hers so quickly she almost wonders if he'd been able to hear her thoughts. He raises a hand in greeting before turning away. Mikasa's heart pounds.

**. . . . .**

A week passes. And it's all very natural the way they move around each other, with each other. They sleep in different beds. They do their laundry in different loads, but they hang it out on the same line in the back patio, her blouse hanging next to his trousers, her skirt fluttering in the wind like a sail. Sometimes they rise at different hours, and when that happens either she leaves a cup of coffee on the counter for him or he leaves a plate of breakfast on the stove for her. He spends his days wandering the shoreline, and she spends her days basking in the sun, wandering the town, the nearby port.

"Mind if I tag along?" she ventures one morning, the both of them awake at the same time. He looks at her, green eyes shining and wide. Perhaps he hadn't heard her. But then he flashes her that grin of hers, the one she hasn't seen in so very long. "If you can keep up," he says.

The sun has only just risen. The morning still has a night's chill to it. Mikasa follows Eren to the water's edge, soon regretting bringing her shoes along. She loops her fingers around her flip flops and carries them in a hand, entering the place behind him where the water rushes up past their ankle sand the ground, smooth pebbles and sand, sinks beneath their steps.

They walk in silence for a couple of miles, maneuvering through the rocks and over driftwood, until they come to an alcove in the shore, where the land rises and dips into a crescent sheltered from the rest of the world.

She watches him reach down and grab a fistful of rocks and sift it through his fingers, before holding a single stone out to her in the palm of his hand. It takes her a moment to realize she should take it. Her fingertips graze his palm in the exchange, and as soon as it's handed off, Eren is down the way, pulling his shirt off and setting it on the rocks, diving into the water.

The pattern on the stone in her hand reminds her vaguely of honeycombs, or like looking through a kaleidoscope. She rubs her fingers against the smooth, cool surface, clutches it in her hand. Trudging through the water, she makes her way to where Eren's put down his clothes. And taking a breath, she puts the stone in her pocket and peels off her dress, trying not to notice how the splashing behind her stops.

Clad in only her underwear, she ventures out into the waves. And ignoring the feeling of his eyes on her, she dives beneath the water. It's colder than she expected, but she stays down for as long as possible, her hair ghosting past her like kelp, the water moving past her skin as if her body were made of scales, and when she comes to the surface, she lets herself float, limbs spread wide—like driftwood on the lake.

**. . . . .**

All showered and a cup of tea resting on the coffee table before her, Mikasa sits curled up with _Pride and Prejudice_ and a blanket in her lap. There isn't much left of it—only about five chapters. She's surprised by how fast she's gotten through it, though not being in school perhaps helps the pace of her reading.

The room over, the pounding of the water in the shower comes to a halt, and a few moments later, Eren emerges in a t-shirt and sweatpants, his hair still damp.

"Have you strongly self-identified with Elizabeth Bennet yet?" Eren calls from the kitchen as he steeps himself a cup of tea. "Because I sure do."

Mikasa finishes the sentence she's on. "I don't know," she replies. "She's a great character, but I don't think I'm very much like her at all."

He takes a sip, and scalds his tongue. "Yes, you're definitely more of a Mary."

Mikasa's brow furrows. She supposes she can see it: the reserved unspectacularness, the silly girl who prefers solitude. Then she hears Eren laugh.

He takes a seat on the couch beside her, and doesn't meet her eyes. "I was kidding," and then, quieter, "You're a Jane Bennet, if anything."

Jane Bennet. What could he possibly mean by that? Mikasa doesn't know what to say. She wonders why she never knows what to say.

"Do you mind?" Eren whispers, gesturing to the blanket across her lap.

"Not at all," Mikasa says, swallowing hard as he slides beneath the blanket close to her. She doesn't look up from her reading, but he's so close and she can feel the heat coming off of him, can smell the soap on his skin. His knee brushes against hers as he reads through a book of his own, and Mikasa can't remember the last time she turned a page.

She shifts in her spot, heart pounding when she resettles and finds herself closer to him. He breathes deep in the same moment she decides to hold her breath. Mikasa dares to let her leg wrap around her ankle.

And then all at once they're kissing. It happens so suddenly but so expectedly that she can't say whether she kissed him or if he kissed her, but she supposes it doesn't much matter. He tastes the same as she remembered, the faintest hint of the herbal tea he was drinking on his tongue. His arms are around her, and hers draw around him, and _Pride and Prejudice_ sits forgotten on the floor, the blanket hastily pulled to the side.

She pulls his shirt over his shoulders, wrapping her arms around his torso, and his lips move across her jaw down to her neck, and she sighs a shuddering sigh. His fingers play at the waistband of her pants, and as she arches her hips up, her eyes meet his and the spell is over. Something foreign enters his eyes, and Eren pulls away.

"I'm sorry," he holds his head in his hands. "I'm so sorry I just…I can't do something that means nothing."

Mikasa flinches. She feels herself growing smaller and smaller, disappearing into the couch. Nothing. Is that what this is? Nothing? Something inside her feels like it's breaking.

"This isn't nothing," she whispers, voice wavering."Not to me." And then it's burning—whatever she's been holding in for so long burns ablaze. "It was never nothing to me."

His eyes still closed, his brow furrowed, she can't read his expression. And it's so hard to breath, her heart straining against her ribcage.

"I'm not any good at this, and I know it doesn't look like it, but I tried."

"I know," he says quietly.

"And you were struggling but you were pushing everyone away, and I didn't know what to do—" the words come spilling from her mouth, and she can't stop them.

"I know," he says again, this time quieter..

Mikasa feels her eyes start to well with tears again. "And I know I should've asked you to stay. But I didn't know how to—" And then his arms are around her, pulling her into his chest. His heartbeat sounds just beneath her ear, and she can't help but hug him back.

"Mikasa," he murmurs. She looks up at him, and he wipes the tears from her cheek with his thumb, and then kisses her there. "Why are you crying?" he whispers. He kisses her again, this time on her lower jaw, the bridge of his nose grazing her skin.

And Mikasa looks at him, cups the hand that cradles her face. "Don't you know?" she asks.

He searches her face, and she searches his. All these months, living side by side by chance, meeting unexpectedly—all these months and here they are now. Miles and miles away in the company of one another. By chance, by choice. "Yes," he says, his own voice wavering. "Yes I know exactly."

They kiss on the lips, this time, something delicate and soft that so quickly becomes wanting, needing, heated and frantic once more. And Mikasa wonders if perhaps they've both always known, all along.

His hands are everywhere, rising up her ribcage, sliding off her underwear and pants. She runs her fingers over the muscles in his shoulders and arms, down his chest to find the waistband of his sweatpants. She throws off her shirt, and he kicks off his boxers, nearly falling off the couch as he does.

Mikasa giggles. "Let's take this to the bedroom," she whispers before kissing him.

"Your bed or mine?" Eren grins back.

Shivering, she wraps the blanket around herself and leads him to her room, where she pulls back the covers and lets him guide her down to the mattress, lets him press burning kisses onto her mouth, her neck, her breasts, her stomach. Each breath she pulls in is shuddering, anticipatory. She forgot what it was to want someone so badly. His hands, warm on the backs of her knees, pull her up towards him where he nips at the skin of her inner thighs, tongue playing, teasing, at the crook where her leg meets her center.

When his tongue finally traces its way to where she wants him, a moan escapes her lips. His lips and tongue are warm and wet as he slings her legs over his shoulders, teasing at her clit as he grabs her wrists, restrains her forearms at her side. Her heels dig into his back, her pine arches to bring him closer, her thighs grazing the sides of his face.

He kisses her, laps at her, brow furrowed in concentration, as her breath quickens. _Faster, faster, just like that, just like that_, she whispers and he complies, until she's shaking, shuddering, grinding herself against his tongue, crying out as she finishes.

Mikasa watches him press one final kiss to her center, his green eyes shining in the dark. She pulls him up to her for a kiss on the lips, a hand reaching down to find his length.

"Do you want to?" he whispers, his forehead pressed against hers, both of them gasping for breath.

Mikasa nods her head. "Please," she whispers, and she guides him into her. They both sigh at the familiar sensation—one they've both missed for months. He groans as he begins to move inside her, and the sound nearly sends Mikasa over the edge.

He's so gentle with her—he always has been—the way he moves, the way he rocks his hips against hers. It feels so natural to be like this: her arms wrapped around his frame, hands tangled in his dark brown hair. Her hot breath on his neck, lips playing and nipping at the skin where his neck slopes to meet his shoulder. If she were a braver girl, she'd whisper the words she's too afraid to even whisper to herself into the shell of his ear. But she locks eyes with him, his thumb reaching up to catch the bead of sweat that falls from his temple onto her cheek, and knows she doesn't need to.

Her breath rattles with every thrust of his hips, and her legs cling to his waist to bring him closer, closer. His cadence gets faster and faster, every breath more and more labored. Eren reaches down to touch that spot at her core with his thumb, and then she's bucking up against him, his hand, his hips, coming to a shuddering finish just as he spills out onto the soft skin of her belly. The night is silent, still. Eren cleans up with tissues on her bedside before collapsing on top of her, resting his head against her chest. Mikasa finds herself running her fingers through his hair, tracing circles into his back and shoulders.

They lie comfortably, the sheets sticking to their skin, the waves crashing, inhaling and exhaling outside their window. Mikasa wonders how either of them could've ever walked away from this, why either of them waited this long to come back. Tucked in the crook of his body, his chin resting on her shoulder, and his arms embracing her, she begins to feel warm, perhaps too warm, but she can't bring herself to pull away from his embrace. She wonders how long they've been lying here—decides the next moment that it doesn't really matter.

His breath tickles her neck. Taking her fingers in his own hand, he presses a kiss to her knuckles. "What time is it?" he whispers, moving to kiss her shoulders.

"Just past one-thirty," Mikasa says, checking on the bedside clock.

The palm of his hand moves to her lower belly, sweeping slowly across the skin just below her navel. "What do you say we go again?" he murmurs. And a tingle runs through Mikasa's body.

"In a moment," Mikasa replies. In a moment they'll begin to kiss again, make love again, and right now, here—his warm body around her, his heartbeat at her back—is perfect. This moment is perfect. To share in the night's quiet loneliness is, perhaps, all they've ever wanted. On the dresser sits the stone he gave her from this morning. Shifting so that she faces him, Mikasa looks into Eren's eyes, her fingers lacing with his. "What's the rush?" she says. "We have all the time in the world."

—**FIN**—


End file.
